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| Author | W. D. Ross |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Ethics |
| Published | 1930 |
| Media type | |
The Right and the Good is a 1930 book by the Scottish philosopher David Ross. In it, Ross develops a deontological pluralism based on prima facie duties. Ross defends a realist position about morality and an intuitionist position about moral knowledge. The Right and the Good has been praised as one of the most important works of ethical theory in the twentieth century. [1] [2]
As the title suggests, The Right and the Good is about rightness, goodness and their relation to each other. [3] : x Rightness is a property of acts while goodness concerns various kinds of things. According to Ross, there are certain features that both have in common: they are real properties, they are indefinable, pluralistic and knowable through intuition. [2] Central to rightness are prima facie duties, for example, the duty to keep one's promises or to refrain from harming others. [1] Of special interest for understanding goodness is intrinsic value: what is good in itself. Ross ascribes intrinsic value to pleasure, knowledge, virtue and justice. [2] It is easy to confuse rightness and goodness in the case of moral goodness. An act is right if it conforms to the agent's absolute duty. [3] : 28 Doing the act for the appropriate motive is not important for rightness but it is central for moral goodness or virtue. [4] Ross uses these considerations to point out the flaws in other ethical theories, for example, in G. E. Moore's ideal utilitarianism or in Immanuel Kant's deontology.
Ross defends a realist position about morality: the moral order expressed in prima facie duties is just as real as "the spatial or numerical structure expressed in the axioms of geometry or arithmetic". [3] : 29–30 Furthermore, the terms "right" and "good" are indefinable. [2] This means that various naturalistic theories trying to define "good" in terms of desire or "right" in terms of producing the most pleasure fail. [3] : 11–2 But this even extends to theories that characterize one of these terms through the other. Ross uses this line of thought to object to Moore's ideal utilitarianism, which defines "right" in terms of "good" by holding that an action is right if it produces the best possible outcome. [1] [4]
Ross, like Immanuel Kant, is a deontologist: he holds that rightness depends on adherence to duties, not on consequences. [1] But against Kant's monism, which bases ethics in only one foundational principle, the categorical imperative, Ross contends that there is a plurality of prima facie duties determining what is right. [2] [3] : xii Some duties originate from our own previous actions, like the duty of fidelity (to keep promises and to tell the truth), and the duty of reparation (to make amends for wrongful acts). The duty of gratitude (to return kindnesses received) arises from the actions of others. Other duties include the duty of non-injury (not to hurt others), the duty of beneficence (to promote the maximum of aggregate good), the duty of self-improvement (to improve one's own condition) and the duty of justice (to distribute benefits and burdens equably). [3] : 21–5 [1]
One problem the deontological pluralist has to face is that cases can arise where the demands of one duty violate another duty, so-called moral dilemmas. [5] For example, there are cases where it is necessary to break a promise in order to relieve someone's distress. [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. Absolute duty, on the other hand, is particular to one specific situation, taking everything into account, and has to be judged on a case-by-case basis. [2] [4] Various considerations are involved in such judgments, e.g. concerning which prima facie duties would be upheld or violated and how important they are in the given case. [1] Ross uses the comparison to physics, where various forces, e.g. due to gravitation or electromagnetism, affect the movement of bodies, but the overall movement is determined not by one single force component but by the total net force. [3] : 28–9 It is absolute duty that determines which acts are right or wrong. This way, the dilemmas posed by prima facie duties can be resolved. [3] : 21–2 [2]
The term "good" is used in various senses in natural language. [4] Ross points out that it is important for philosophy to distinguish between the attributive and the predicative sense. [3] : 65 In the attributive sense, "good" means skillful or useful, as in "a good singer" or "a good knife". This sense of good is relative to a certain kind: being good as something, like a person may be good as a singer but not good as a cook. [3] : 65–7 The predicative sense of good, on the other hand, as in "pleasure is good" or "knowledge is good" is not relative in this sense. Of main interest to philosophy is a certain type of predicative goodness: so-called intrinsic goodness. An intrinsically good thing is good in itself: it would be good even if it existed all by itself, it is not just good as a means because of its consequences. [3] : 67–8 [6]
According to Ross, self-evident intuition shows that there are four kinds of things that are intrinsically good: pleasure, knowledge, virtue and justice. [1] [4] "Virtue" refers to actions or dispositions to act from the appropriate motives, for example, from the desire to do one's duty. [2] "Justice", on the other hand, is about happiness in proportion to merit. As such, pleasure, knowledge and virtue all concern states of mind, in contrast to justice, which concerns a relation between two states of mind. [2] These values come in degrees and are comparable with each other. Ross holds that virtue has the highest value while pleasure has the lowest value. [4] [5] He goes so far as to suggest that "no amount of pleasure is equal to any amount of virtue, that in fact virtue belongs to a higher order of value". [3] : 150 Values can also be compared within each category, for example, well-grounded knowledge of general principles is more valuable than weakly grounded knowledge of isolated matters of fact. [3] : 146–7 [2]
According to Ross's intuitionism, we can know moral truths through intuition, for example, that it is wrong to lie or that knowledge is intrinsically good. [2] Intuitions involve a direct apprehension that is not mediated by inferences or deductions: they are self-evident and therefore not in need of any additional proof. [1] This ability is not inborn but has to be developed on the way to reaching mental maturity. [3] : 29 But in its fully developed form, we can know moral truths just as well as we can know mathematical truths like the axioms of geometry or arithmetic. [3] : 30 [7] This self-evident knowledge is limited to general principles: we can come to know the prima facie duties this way but not our absolute duty in a particular situation: what we should do all things considered. [3] : 19–20, 30 All we can do is consult perception to determine which prima facie duty has the highest normative weight in this particular case, even though this usually does not amount to knowledge proper due to the complexity involved in most specific cases. [2]
Various arguments in The Right and the Good are directed against utilitarianism in general and Moore's version of it in particular. Ross acknowledges that there is a duty to promote the maximum of aggregate good, as utilitarianism demands. But, Ross contends, this is just one besides various other duties, which are ignored by the overly simplistic and reductive utilitarian outlook. [3] : 19 [1] Another fault of utilitarianism is that it disregards the personal character of duties, for example, due to fidelity and gratitude. [3] : 22 Ross argues that his deontological pluralism does a better job at capturing common-sense morality since it avoids these problems. [2]
Ross objects to Kant's view that the rightness of actions depends on their motive. Such a view leads to a circular or even contradictory account of duty since "[t]hose who hold that our duty is to act from a certain motive usually ... hold that the motive from which we ought to act is the sense of duty". [3] : 5 So "it is my duty to do act A from the sense that it is my duty to do act A". [3] : 5 To avoid this problem, Ross suggests that moral goodness should be distinguished from moral rightness or moral obligation. [3] : 5 The moral value of an action depends on the motive but the motive is not relevant for whether the act is right or wrong. [4]
Ross's intuitionism relies on our intuitions about what is right and what has intrinsic value as the source of moral knowledge. But it is questionable how reliable moral intuitions are. One worry is due to the fact that there is a lot of disagreement about fundamental moral principles. [2] Another doubt comes from an evolutionary perspective which holds that our moral intuitions are primarily shaped by evolutionary pressures and less by the objective moral structure of the world. [1] [8]
Utilitarians have defended their position against the accusations of being overly simplistic and out of touch with common-sense morality by pointing to flaws in Ross's arguments. [1] Many examples by Ross in favor of deontological pluralism seem to rely on a rather generic characterization of the cases. But filling in the particular details may show utilitarianism to be more in touch with common-sense than initially suggested. [9] [2]
Another criticism concerns Ross's term "prima facie duty". As Shelly Kagan has pointed out, this term is unfortunate since it implies a mere appearance as, for example, when someone is under the illusion of having a certain duty. [10] But what Ross tries to convey is that every prima facie duty has actual normative weight even though it may be overruled by other considerations. This would be better expressed by the term "pro tanto duty". [10] [2]
Ross's deontological pluralism was a true innovation and provided a plausible alternative to Kantian deontology. [2] His ethical intuitionism found few followers among his contemporaries but has seen a revival by the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. Among the philosophers influenced by The Right and the Good are Philip Stratton-Lake, Robert Audi, Michael Huemer, and C.D. Broad. [1]
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Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates questions regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense.
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This index of ethics articles puts articles relevant to well-known ethical debates and decisions in one place - including practical problems long known in philosophy, and the more abstract subjects in law, politics, and some professions and sciences. It lists also those core concepts essential to understanding ethics as applied in various religions, some movements derived from religions, and religions discussed as if they were a theory of ethics making no special claim to divine status.
Virtue ethics is an approach that treats virtue and character as the primary subjects of ethics, in contrast to other ethical systems that put consequences of voluntary acts, principles or rules of conduct, or obedience to divine authority in the primary role.
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, rather than based on the consequences of the action. It is sometimes described as duty-, obligation-, or rule-based ethics. Deontological ethics is commonly contrasted to consequentialism, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and pragmatic ethics. In this terminology, action is more important than the consequences.
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The Critique of Practical Reason is the second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, published in 1788. It follows on from Kant's first critique, the Critique of Pure Reason and deals with his moral philosophy. While Kant had already published one significant work in moral philosophy, the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785), the Critique of Practical Reason was intended to both develop his account of the will as determinable by the moral law alone and place his ethical views within the larger framework of his system of critical philosophy.
Ethical intuitionism is a view or family of views in moral epistemology. It is foundationalism applied to moral knowledge, the thesis that some moral truths can be known non-inferentially. Such an epistemological view is by definition committed to the existence of knowledge of moral truths; therefore, ethical intuitionism implies cognitivism.
Sir William David Ross, known as David Ross but usually cited as W. D. Ross, was a Scottish Aristotelian philosopher, translator, WWI veteran, civil servant, and university administrator. His best-known work is The Right and the Good (1930), in which he developed a pluralist, deontological form of intuitionist ethics in response to G. E. Moore's consequentialist form of intuitionism. Ross also critically edited and translated a number of Aristotle's works, such as his 12-volume translation of Aristotle together with John Alexander Smith, and wrote on other Greek philosophy.
The Moderate objectivism account of moral principles is based on the ethics of Sir William David Ross (1877–1940). Moderate objectivism adheres to basic notions of the Natural Law Theory. 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.
Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which it is an instance". Philosophers Richard Brandt and Brad Hooker are major proponents of such an approach.
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Principia Ethica is a book written in 1903 by British philosopher, G. E. Moore. Moore questions a fundamental pillar of ethics, specifically what the definition of "good" is. He concludes that "good" is indefinable because any attempts to do so commit the naturalistic fallacy. Principia Ethica was influential, with Moore's arguments being considered ground-breaking advances in the field of moral philosophy.
Kantian ethics refers to a deontological ethical theory developed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant that is based on the notion that: "It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will." The theory was developed in the context of Enlightenment rationalism. It states that an action can only be moral if (i) it is motivated by a sense of duty and (ii) its maxim may be rationally willed a universal, objective law.
Two-level utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics developed by R. M. Hare. According to the theory, a person's moral decisions should be based on a set of moral rules, except in certain rare situations where it is more appropriate to engage in a 'critical' level of moral reasoning.
The values that a person holds may be personal or political depending on whether they are considered in relation to the individual or to society. Apart from moral virtue, examples of personal values include friendship, knowledge, beauty etc. and examples of political values, justice, equality and liberty. This article will outline some current ideas relating to the first group – personal values. It will begin by looking at the kinds of thing that have value and finish with a look at some of the theories that attempt to describe what value is. Reference will be made solely to Western sources although it is recognised that many, if not all, of the values discussed may be universal.