In The Right and the Good, W. D. Ross commits himself to the view that, in addition to being distinct and defeasible, some prima facie duties are more binding than others. David McNaughton has argued that there appears to be no way of making sense of this claim that is both coherent and consistent with Ross's overall picture. I offer an alternative way of understanding Ross's remarks about the comparative stringency of prima facie duties, which, in (...) addition to being compatible with his view as presented in the text, provides us with a coherent, and indeed plausible, account of what it means for some duties to be more binding than others. (shrink)

Some conservation biologists invoke the concept of ‘genetic integrity,’ which they generally assume is a good worth preserving without explicit justification. We examine the question of whether or not there is a prima facie duty to preserve genetic integrity in conservation biology. We examine several possible justifications for the potential duty found in the conservation biology literature. We argue, contra a dominant trend of thought in conservation biology, that there is no prima facie (...) class='Hi'>duty to preserve genetic integrity and that any moral obligation to preserve genetic integrity in specific cases is merely derivative of other possible duties. (shrink)

THE PROJECT OF THIS PAPER IS TO GIVE AN EXPLICIT DEFINITION OF 'PRIMA FACIE' DUTY EMPLOYING THE NOTION OF DUTY (SIMPLICITER) AS THE ONLY MORAL NOTION. THIS DEFINITION AVOIDS THE CIRCULARITY OF SOME DEFINITIONS WHILE ALSO BEING SUFFICIENTLY GENERAL SO AS NOT TO DEPEND ON THE ADOPTION OF ANY PARTICULAR MORAL VIEWPOINT. THIS PAPER ATTACKS THE VIEW THAT A MORAL PHILOSOPHER (OR AN ANTHROPOLOGIST DESCRIBING A MORAL CODE) CAN ALWAYS IN PRINCIPLE AVOID EMPLOYING THE NOTION OF (...) A 'PRIMA FACIE' DUTY SIMPLY BY GIVING A CAREFUL STATEMENT OF EACH RULE MAKING EXPLICIT ITS EXCEPTIONS. (shrink)

Sir David Ross introduced and discussed his notion of prima facie duties in chapter 2 of The Right and the Good , and it is to this chapter that I shall devote most attention. I wish to show that the distinction between prima facie and “actual” duties, as expounded by Ross, entails that there are no “actual” duties; and I wish to show that this unfortunate consequence of the distinction arises from Ross's explicit epist-emological views. Writers (...) such as Ewing, Baier and Frankena, who have quoted Ross's distinction with some degree of approval, force one to ask how, precisely, they interpreted it. In the first part of this paper I set out Ross's exposition in detail, since failure to do this has blinded adherents to its difficulties; in the second part I summarise my findings and indicate the problems Ross rightly poses for us; in the third part I suggest possible sources for Ross's views. Two points should be noted at the outset. Firstly, the distinction applies to acts, not actions; “act” refers to “the thing done, the initiation of change, and ‘action’ the doing of it, the initiating of change, from a certain motive” . Secondly, the term “right” is used throughout as synonymous with “what is my duty”. (shrink)

Ross divides prima facie duties into derivative and foundational ones, but seems to understand the notion of a derivative prima facie duty in two very different ways. Sometimes he understands them in a non-eliminativist way. According to this understanding, basic prima facie duties ground distinct derivative ones. According to the eliminativist understanding, basic duties do not ground distinct derivative duties, but replace them. On the eliminativist view, discovering that a prima facie (...) duty is derivative is discovering that it is not genuine. The genuine one is the basic one. I argue that Ross is best understood as an eliminativist. (shrink)

Benatar’s central argument for antinatalism develops an asymmetry between the pain and pleasure in a potential life. I am going to present an alternative route to the antinatalist conclusion. I argue that duties require victims and that as a result there is no duty to create the pleasures contained within a prospective life but a duty not to create any of its sufferings. My argument can supplement Benatar’s, but it also enjoys some advantages: it achieves a better fit (...) with our intuitions; it does not require us to acknowledge that life is a harm, or that a world devoid of life is a good thing; and it is easy to see why it does not have any pro-mortalist implications. (shrink)

Selective conscientious objection, a refusal to participate in a specific war due to reasons of conscience, has recently gained attention. A combatant confronted with such a decision needs guidance to help decide whether and how to object. Furthermore, those judging a combatant’s objection or failure to object need guidance. After introducing the prima facie duty override criteria, I will apply the criteria to the case of selective conscientious objection. Ultimately, I argue that the jus ad bellum criteria (...) rebranded as the prima facie duty override criteria can help provide guidance regarding selective conscientious objection. (shrink)

A properly programmed artificially intelligent agent may eventually have one duty, the duty to satisfice expected welfare. We explain this claim and defend it against objections.

The goal of this article is to try to resolve two key problems in the duty-based approach of W. D. Ross: the source of principles and a process for moving from prima facie to actual duty. I use a naturalistic explanation for the former and a nine-step method for making concrete ethical decisions as they could be applied to journalism. Consistent with Ross's position, the process is complicated, particularly in tougher problems, and it cannot guarantee correct (...) choices. Again consistent with Ross, such complexity and uncertainty speak in the method's favor, given the difficulty—factual, motivational, and organizational—of ethics problems and decision making. (shrink)

In "moral philosophy" richard garner and bernard rosen give a counter-Example against w d ross. We have no prima facie duty to tell a neighbor our love life, Although he might gain knowledge and pleasure. I argue that for ross we could have such a prima facie, Though not an actual, Duty. The lover-Acquaintance relation makes unlikely such an action becoming an actual duty. Also we can conceive of cases in which it might (...) be an actual duty; viz. A case in which the divulger is a psychologist who needs to gain the neighbor's confidence in a group therapy situation. (shrink)

The concept of prima facie duty is deemed important by ross and the author. The author thinks ross and others have not elucidated the concept and the relation between prima facie and 'absolute' duty. He concludes that "we must explain the obligatoriness of absolute duties in terms of prima facie duties, As being derived from them, And not vice versa, As ross attempted." (staff).

Sir David Ross introduced prima facie duties, or acts with a tendency to be duties proper. He also spoke of general prima facie principles, wwhich attribute to acts having some feature the tendency to be a duty proper. Like Utilitarians from Mill to Hare, he saw a role for such principles in the epistemology of duty: in the process by means of which, in any given situation, a moral code can help us to find (...) out what we ought to do.After formalizing general prima facie principles as universally quantified conditionals I will show how seeming duties can be detached from them. There will be examples involving lies, burnt offerings and the question of whether to have a napkin on your lap while eating asparagus. They will illustrate the defeasibility of this detachment, how it can lead into dilemmas, and how general prima facie principles are overridden by more specific ones. (shrink)

Responding to my paper Bribery Tom Carson argues that bribe takers violate promisory obligations in a wider range of cases than I acknowledge and insists that bribe taking is prima facie wrong in all contexts. I argue that he is wrong on both counts.

The purpose of this chapter is to offer an ethical investigation into whether researchers have a duty to share pre-published bio-medical data with the scientific community. The central questions of the chapter are the following: do researchers have a prima facie duty to share pre-published data? And if so, what stakes and aspects of a concrete situation need to be taken into consideration in order to assess whether and to what extent researchers’ prima facie (...) duty to share data applies? We will argue that based upon their basic duties to benefit society and to promote scientific knowledge, researchers have a prima facie duty to share data. We will also argue that in order to determine whether the prima facie duty applies in practice it is indispensable to take into account the stakes of the persons concerned as well as context dependent aspects. The chapter’s overall goal is to build an analytical and ethical framework that helps to assess with regard to concrete situations whether researchers’ duty to share data applies. To this end we analyse the concept of data sharing and clarify what data sharing might imply in practice. To offer an overview of the different stakeholders’ concerns we will analyse the normative-informational environment in which data producing researchers (to whom the prima facie duty to share data applies) are usually situated. In the last step we focus on the ethically relevant context dependent aspects and illustrate how they affect researchers’ prima facie duty to share data and stakeholders’ potentially conflicting stakes. (shrink)

In this essay, I call into question Yasha Rohwer and Emma Marris’s attack on what they see as a dominant view in conservation biology: namely, that there is a prima facie moral duty to preserve gen...

This paper argues that ross's theory is an unsatisfactory compromise between moore's ideal utilitarianism and prichard's intuitionism. by including an 'optimific' principle, ross is exposed like moore to such difficulties as having to grant that we never know our duty and that logically we have a duty to pursue our own pleasure. in addition, this paper attributes to moore's influence ross's very inadequate treatment of justice; difficulties in his basic distinction of prima facie versus actual duties; (...) and his unsatisfactory treatments of the deontological/teleological issue. (shrink)

It is argued that a little-Discussed notion of prima facie good (and a related notion of a "basic value experience") can throw light on some of the most vexing problems of value theory, About the meaning of 'good', The naturalistic fallacy, The objectivity of value, The fact-Value distinction and intrinsic value. The notion of prima facie good is formally analogous to w d ross's notion of prima facie duty, But is more general (applying (...) to value generally) and (it is argued) is more useful and less problematic. Views of spinoza, Ross, Moore, Perry and recent value theorists are discussed. (shrink)

This essay challenges a "meta-theory" in just war analysis that purports to bridge the divide between just war and pacifism. According to the meta-theory, just war and pacifism share a common presumption against killing that can be overridden only under conditions stipulated by the just war criteria. Proponents of this meta-theory purport that their interpretation leads to ecumenical consensus between "just warriors" and pacifists, and makes the just war theory more effective in reducing recourse to war. Engagement with the new (...) meta-theory reveals, however, that these purported advantages are illusory, made possible only by ignoring fundamental questions about the nature and function of political authority that are crucial to all moral reflection on the problem of war. (shrink)

Este artículo examina algunos de los problemas que presenta el tratamiento lógico de las obligaciones prima facie en la obra de Carlos Alchourrón. Por una parte, señalaremos que su sistema para los condicionales derrotables DFT no formaliza adecuadamente la noción intuitiva de condición contribuyente que Alchourrón utiliza para elucidar la de condicional derrotable. Por otra parte, argumentaremos que la noción de deber prima facie de David Ross no queda adecuadamente formalizada en el sistema AD de lógica (...) deóntica que Alchourrón construye como una extensión de DFT. This paper deals with some problems concerning the logical treatment of prima facie obligations in the work of Carlos Alchourrón. On the one hand, we will argue that his DFT system for defeasible conditionals does not adequately formalize the intuitive notion of contributory condition used by Alchourrón to elucidate the notion of defeasible conditional. On the other hand, we will argue that David Ross' notion of prima facie duty is not adequately formalized in Alchourrón' s deontic system AD, an extension of his DFT logic. (shrink)

Standardly, the usual approach to rationality is based on the notion of ‘being a reason for’. Honouring the traditional distinction between practical and theoretical philosophy, reasons are classified as justificative and explicative. In both cases, a reason-statement has the form ‘’. For reasons of type , ‘A’ is a factual statement and ‘B’ is a statement which describes an action of the agent. The reason-statement has a prescriptive sense because ‘A is a reason for doing B’ means ‘A is a (...) reason an agent ought to do B’. So, it is advisable to schematize that kind of statements as ‘’, where ‘OB’ is a deontic statement prescribing the duty to do B. Reasons of type have a descriptive sense and do not require the above-mentioned constraint. But ‘being a reason for’ has different senses according to context, even when the distinction between justificative and explicative reasons is drawn. Accordingly, it is important to distinguish two basic types of reasons: sufficient and necessary, and two subordinate types of reasons: contributing and substitutive . A lot of attention has been paid, lately, to a sense of contributive reasons: prima facie reasons . The paper will deal with that kind of reasons. Its main thesis are: 1) prima facie reason-statements are defeasible conditionals ‘’ pointing out that A is a contributing condition of B, 2) a defeasible conditional has the properties of ‘’, where ‘ =>’ is a strict implication and ‘f’’ a revision-operator satisfying the conditions set up by the theory AGM on the rational change of theories. (shrink)

Natural property rights are widely viewed as anathema to welfarist taxation, and are pictured as non-contextual, non-relational and resistant to regulation. Here, I argue that many of the major arguments for such views are flawed. Such arguments trade on an ambiguity in the term ‘right’ that makes it possible to conflate the core concept of a right with a situated or specified right from which one can read off people’s actual legal entitlements and duties. I marshal several arguments demonstrating this (...) conflation. In particular, I examine the right to free speech, where contextualization and responsiveness to the requirements of other rights are assumed as a matter of course. I conclude that the existence of one natural right does not foreclose the existence of other natural rights. Arguments for or against welfare rights must be assessed, at least to some extent, independently of the assertion of a natural property right. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Prima Facie Duty to Obey: A Brief History Implications of Catechistic Metaethics for the Duty of Obedience Implications of Commonalist Metaethics for the Duty of Obedience Conclusion References.

No matter how it is viewed, as a plausible version of anti-utilitarianism or of non-consequentialist, or even as a plausible version of deontology, the theory of prima facie duties certainly makes W. D. Ross one of the most important moral philosopher of the twentieth-century. By outlining his pluralistic deontology, this paper attempts to argue for a positive answer to the question of whether Ross’s theory can offer a solution to the issue of conflicting duties. If such a solution (...) is convincing, as I believe it is, it would indicate the possibility to justify within the deontological framework, i.e., without committing to the principle of good-maximizing, those “hard cases” where people should break a promise or other (prima facie) duty in order to prevent a disastrous outcome. The theory of prima facie duties might then suggest that deontology and utilitarianism would likely be reconcilable. (shrink)

In both The Right and the Good and The Foundations of Ethics, W. D. Ross maintains that any amount of the non-instrumental value of virtue outweighs any amount of the non-instrumental value of pleasure or avoidance of pain. The chapter raises two challenges to the status that Ross accords the value of virtue relative to the value of pleasure (pain). First, it argues that Ross fails to provide a good argument for thinking that virtue is always better than pleasure and (...) that it is in any case implausible to think that any amount of virtue (or avoidance of vice) is better than the avoidance of any amount of pain or suffering. Second, it argues that the inflexibility of Ross’s value theory exhibited in his claim about the relative value of virtue produces tension with and mars the attractive heterarchical structure of his theory of rightness or prima facie duties. (shrink)

In this article I criticize a theory of political obligation recently put forward by Christopher Wellman. Wellman's “samaritan theory” grounds both state legitimacy and political obligation in a natural duty to help people in need when this can be done at no unreasonable cost. I argue that this view is not able to account for some important features of the relation between state and citizens that Wellman himself seems to value. My conclusion is that the samaritan theory can only (...) be accepted if we are ready to give up either the traditional notion of political obligation as a prima facie duty valid for every citizen, or the current view of the relationships that should exist between states, citizens and foreigners (the view according to which states should have special concerns for their own citizens). (shrink)

The tendency towards analysis and criticism, realism and pluralism, which has been evident in general philosophy during the present century has had important effects on recent ethical discussion. Its influence is to be seen in the two theories which on account of their prominence and the number of their disciples may be said to be most characteristic of the period—Ideal Utilitarianism and the New Intuitionism—theories which no less an authority than Sir David Ross described as the rival theories. However different (...) these theories are in many respects they have a tendency towards ethical pluralism, if not atomism—a tendency not only to emphasize distinctions but even to harden the distinguishable elements into independent, if not even unrelated, entities. The one leaves us with a series of independent goods and the other with a series of prima facie duties, with the result that neither gives us any unitary principle to help us in one of the principal tasks of the moral life, the attempt to discover what in particular circumstances we ought to do. (shrink)

Normative ethics asks: What makes right acts right? W. D. Ross attempted to answer this question inThe Right and the Good(1930). Most theorists have agreed that Ross provided no systematic explanatory answers. Ross's intuitionism lacks any decision procedure, and, as McNaughton (2002: 91) states, it ‘turns out after all to have nothing general to say about the relative stringency of our basic duties’. Here I will show that my own Rossian intuitionism does have a systematic way of explaining what makes (...) right acts right. Deontological theories have struggled to say what internal to acts could make them right. From Price to Ross, the striking but uninformative answer has beenthe natureof the act. In this paper I will provide a Rossian theory of the moral natures of acts. It contains a set of self-evident principles of moral stringency and other considerations that can assist agents in deciding what prima facie duty overrides what. (shrink)

This article examines the ethical basis for the patient's duty to adhere to the physician's treatment prescriptions. The article argues that patients have a moral duty to adhere to the physician's treatment prescriptions, once they have accepted treatment. Since patients still retain the right to refuse medical treatment, their duty to adhere to treatment prescriptions is a prima facie duty, which can be overridden by their other ethical duties. However, patients do not have the (...) right to refuse to adhere to treatment prescriptions if their non-adherence poses a significant threat to other people. This paper also discusses the use of written agreements between physicians and patients as a strategy for promoting patient adherence. (shrink)

In _The Ethics of Whistleblowing_ (2019), Boot engages with the current literature on unauthorized disclosure of information, critically examines some positions, and defends others. One early step of the book’s main argument is to claim that whistleblowing is _pro tanto_ wrong. This claim which many parties of the debate accept affects the narrative of the discussion and also plays a role against attempts to justify whistleblowing based on moral rights. In opposition to such a claim, I argue that one can (...) similarly ascribe _pro tanto_ rightness to whistleblowing. However, this would also be a mistake. In principle, such claims are inaccurate concerning how _pro tanto_ reasons work. Considering the motivations for taking up Ross’s idea of _prima facie_ duties, and having in mind the theoretical role they are supposed to play, I suggest that only simple type-acts (as contrasted with complex act-types) may be called _pro tanto_ right or wrong. Therefore, although widely appealed to, such claims about whistleblowing are neither helpful nor successful in the debate. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed social shortcomings and ethical failures, but it also revealed strengths and successes. In this perspective article, we examine and discuss one strength: the duty to care. We understand this duty in a broad sense, as more than a duty to treat individual patients who could infect health care workers. We understand it as a prima facie duty to work to provide care and promote health in the face of risks, obstacles, (...) and inconveniences. Although at least one survey suggested that health care workers would not respond to a SARS-like outbreak according to a duty to care, we give reasons to show that the response was better than expected. The reasons we discuss lead us to consider normative accounts of the duty to care based on the adoption of social roles. Then, we consider one view of the relationship between empirical claims and normative claims about the duty to care in the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we draw insight from Mengzi, with an emendation from Dewey. Our perspective leaves many question to research, but one point seems clear: there will be future pandemics and the need for health care workers who respond. (shrink)

In The Ethics of Whistleblowing (2019), Boot engages with the current literature on unauthorized disclosure of information, critically examines some positions, and defends others. One early step of the book’s main argument is to claim that whistleblowing is pro tanto wrong. This claim which many parties of the debate accept affects the narrative of the discussion and also plays a role against attempts to justify whistleblowing based on moral rights. In opposition to such a claim, I argue that one can (...) similarly ascribe pro tanto rightness to whistleblowing. However, this would also be a mistake. In principle, such claims are inaccurate concerning how pro tanto reasons work. Considering the motivations for taking up Ross’s idea of prima facie duties, and having in mind the theoretical role they are supposed to play, I suggest that only simple type-acts (as contrasted with complex act-types) may be called pro tanto right or wrong. Therefore, although widely appealed to, such claims about whistleblowing are neither helpful nor successful in the debate. (shrink)

The first phase of the recent intuitionist revival left untouched Ross’s claim that fundamental moral truths are self-evident. In a recent article, Robert Cowan attempts to explain, in a plausible way, how we know moral truths. The result is that, while the broad framework of Ross’s theory appears to remain in place, the self-evidence of moral truths is thrown into doubt. In this paper, I examine Cowan’s Conceptual Intuitionism. I use his own proposal to show how he arrives at a (...) skeptical position on self-evidence. First, he completely ignores the kind of epistemic appraisal intuitionism has always rested on; second, he is committed to the Reasons View of prima facie duty, rather than to Ross’s Properties View; third, he holds that a commitment to self-evidence often comes with a commitment to metaphysically extravagant entities, which he calls Perceptualism; fourth, he scrutinizes only a part of the contemporary theory of self-evidence, overlooking the strengths of the theory when considered as a whole. Revealing these several points supports the conclusion that Cowan has not provided a viable variety of Rossian Intuitionism. (shrink)

Rohwer and Marris (2015) question the existence of a prima facie duty to preserve genetic integrity leaving open the question of what we should preserve. Many of the arguments used to justify their position could set the platform to defend a duty to preserve the diversity of both wild and domesticated species. In times where agricultural land covers a third of world’s land area and major efforts are undertaken to green urban areas a defense of biodiversity (...) could benefit hugely by intelligently incorporating human-induced diversification. It still remains critical to assess in how far new introductions compensate for losses and here the insights of those defending genetic integrity are an important tool. By acknowledging the added value of human-induced biodiversity we could slow down massive extinction of domesticated and semi-wild varieties by giving these a greater space in human-made environments. (shrink)

Do we have a duty to use moral neurointerventions to correct deficits in our moral psychology? On their surface, these technologies appear to pose worrisome risks to valuable dimensions of the self, and these risks could conceivably weigh against any prima facie moral duty we have to use these technologies. Focquaert and Schermer :139–151, 2015) argue that neurointerventions pose special risks to the self because they operate passively on the subject’s brain, without her active participation, unlike (...) ‘active’ interventions. Some neurointerventions, however, appear to be relatively unproblematic, and some appear to preserve the agent’s sense of self precisely because they operate passively. In this paper, I propose three conditions that need to be met for a medical intervention to be considered low-risk, and I say that these conditions cut across the active/passive divide. A low-risk intervention must: pass pre-clinical and clinical trials, fare well in post-clinical studies, and be subject to regulations protecting informed consent. If an intervention passes these tests, its risks do not provide strong countervailing reasons against our prima facie duty to undergo the intervention. (shrink)

In the scholarly debate, refugeehood is often understood to arise from a special need for basic protection, i.e., for protection of basic needs and rights. However, the main definitions of refugeehood shift to duties when aiming to develop this view. Either, refugees are defined as all those individuals who can receive basic protection from the international community, and thus arguably ought to be protected, or refugees are defined as all those to whom a special form of protection, namely protection by (...) admission is owed. The paper argues that either definition is incompatible with a commonsense desideratum on consistent and plausible criteria for refugeehood, since these definitions imply that refugeehood depends partly on the capacities of protecting states and on the needs of third parties. Instead, refugeehood is defined by the need for basic protection and by flight aiming to remedy this condition. (shrink)

This article presents a revised version of negative utilitarianism. Previous versions have relied on a hedonistic theory of value and stated that suffering should be minimized. The traditional rebuttal is that the doctrine in this form morally requires us to end all sentient life. To avoid this, a need-based theory of value is introduced. The frustration of the needs not to suffer and not to have one’s autonomy dwarfed should, prima facie, be decreased. When decreasing the need frustration (...) of some would increase the need frustration of others, the case is deferred and a fuller ethical analysis is conducted. The author’s perceptions on murder, extinction, the right to die, antinatalism, veganism, and abortion are used to reach a reflective equilibrium. The new theory is then applied to consumerism, material growth, and power relations. The main finding is that the burden of proof should be on those who promote the status quo. (shrink)

The procurement of fetal tissue for transplantation may promise great benefit to those suffering from various pathologies, e.g., neural disorders, diabetes, renal problems, and radiation sickness. However, debates about the use of fetal tissue have proceeded without much attention to ethical theory and application. Two broad moral questions are addressed here, the first formal, the second substantive: Is there a framework from other moral paradigms to assist in ethical debates about the transplantation of fetal tissue? Does the use of fetal (...) tissue entail cooperation in abortion? To answer these questions I develop a theoretical framework by combining the paradigm of just-war reasoning with canons governing the use of cadaverous tissue. The kinds of safeguards provided by this paradigm allow fetal tissue to be procured without the taint of association with abortion. Central to solving the problem of cooperation is the distinction between intending and foreseeing a moral misdeed. Fetal researchers may foresee fetal death in elective abortions without intending such deaths to occur. Thus, even those who object unequivocally to elective abortion may condone the procurement of fetal tissue, if sufficient reason exists. Keywords: fetal tissue, casuistry, prima facie duties, just-war tenets, complicity CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)