Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
[3]: 28 Ross makes use of the distinction between prima facie duties and absolute duty to solve this problem. [3]: 28 The duties listed above are prima facie duties; they are general principles whose validity is self-evident to morally mature persons. They are factors that do not take all considerations into account.
In The Right and the Good, Ross lists seven prima facie duties, without claiming his list to be all-inclusive: fidelity; reparation; gratitude; justice; beneficence; non-maleficence; and self-improvement. In any given situation, any number of these prima facie duties may apply. In the case of ethical dilemmas, they may even contradict one another.
W. D. Ross objects to Kant's monistic deontology, which bases ethics in only one foundational principle, the categorical imperative. He contends that there is a plurality (7, although this number is seen to vary to interpretation) of prima facie duties determining what is right.
W. D. Ross refers to these moderate objectivists' accounts of moral principles as "prima facie principles" which are valid rules of action that one should generally adhere to but, in cases of moral conflict, may be overridable by another moral principle, hence the moderation.
[2]: 8 In spite of their neglect of the period of British moral philosophy between Sidgwick and the Second World War, Prichard's "Mistake" was among the few works of that period (alongside Moore's Principia Ethica and the chapter of Ross's The Right and the Good on prima facie duties) which continued to be read. [2]: 2
Prima facie (/ ˌ p r aɪ m ə ˈ f eɪ ʃ i,-ʃ ə,-ʃ i iː /; from Latin prīmā faciē) is a Latin expression meaning "at first sight", [1] or "based on first impression". [2] The literal translation would be "at first face" or "at first appearance", from the feminine forms of primus ("first") and facies ("face"), both in the ablative case.
And someone trying to follow W. D. Ross's prima facie duty to keep promises may fail should she forget the promise. Smith repeatedly explored these "epistemic" problems [ 20 ] and argued that the solution depends on recognizing that moral theories must be supplemented by a hierarchy of decision rules that prescribe acts as "subjectively right ...
"Modern Moral Philosophy" is an article on moral philosophy by G. E. M. Anscombe, originally published in the journal Philosophy, vol. 33, no. 124 (January 1958). [1]The article has influenced the emergence of contemporary virtue ethics, [2] [3] [4] especially through the work of Alasdair MacIntyre.