Philosophy 1100: Ethics Today: 1. Something all our theories have had in common 2. W.D. Ross 3.

The Concept of Prima Facie Duties 4. Ross List of Prima Facie Duties 5. Ross Theory To read for next time: - Just re-read the paragraph in Ross on pp. 34-35. something all our theories have had in common So far, all of the main theories we have looked at ... Divine Command Theory (DCT) Cultural Relativism (CR) Act Utilitarianism (AU) Kants Categorical Imperative (KCI) have been forms of monism in the Normative Ethics of Behavior. something all our theories have had in common A theory is a form of monism if, according to it, there is just one basic thing that all right acts have in common. Such as ... being commanded by God, being permitted by the moral code of society, maximizing hedonic utility, having a universalizable maxim.W.D. Ross (1877-1971) British philosopher Translator or Aristotle Defends a pluralist theory of morality in his book The Right and the Good (1930) Big idea: prima facie dutiesPrima Facie Duties Ross (pp. 19-20): I suggest prima facie duty or conditional duty as a brief way of referring to the characteristic (quite distinct from that of being a duty proper) which an act has, in virtue of being of a certain kind (e.g. the keeping of a promise), of being an act which would be a duty proper if it were not at the same time of another kind which is morally signicant. Whether an act is a duty proper or actual duty depends on all the morally signicant kinds it is an instance of.Prima Facie Duties An act is a prima facie duty when there is a moral reason in favor of doing the act, but one that can be outweighed by other moral reasons.

Another denition: An act is a prima facie duty when it has at least one right-making feature. Another term that means the same thing is prima facie right.Prima Facie Duties An act is a prima facie wrong when there is a moral reason against doing the act, but one that can be outweighed by other moral reasons. Another denition: An act is a prima facie wrong when it has at least one wrong-making feature. * Dont confuse prima facie rightness and wrongness with actual rightness and wrongness, or what we sometimes call all-things-considered rightness and wrongness.Prima Facie Duties Example: If I have promised to meet a friend at a particular time for some trivial purpose, I should certainly think myself justied in breaking my engagement if by doing so I could prevent a serious accident or bring relief to the victims of one. - Ross (p. 18) Lets make this more explicit ...Prima Facie Duties The Promise/Accident Example: I promise to meet a friend for lunch. On the way there, I witness an accident. If I keep my promise to meet my friend, someone will die. If I break my promise, I can help at the accident and save a life. I thus have a prima facie duty to meet my friend (since I promised that I would meet him, and that I promised to do something is a reason in favor of doing it). But I also have a prima facie duty to help at the accident (since this would prevent serious harm to someone, and that an act would prevent serious harm is a reason in favor of doing it). I thus have a conict of prima facie duties.Prima Facie Duties Another Example: the splinterRoss List of Prima Facie Duties (a) Fidelity: If you make a promise, you have a prima facie obligation to keep it. (b) Reparations: If you have wronged someone, you have a prima facie obligation to repair it.

(c) Gratitude: If someone has benetted you, you have a prima facie obligation to express your gratitude. (p. 21)Ross List of Prima Facie Duties (d) Justice: See to it that goods are distributed fairly. (e) Benecence: Help a brother out. (continued) (or sister!) (f) Self-Improvement Make yourself a better person. (g) Non-Malecence Dont f--- a brother or sister up.Ross Theory It is worth while to try to state more denitely the nature of the acts that are right. ... It is obvious that any of the acts that we do has countless effects, directly or indirectly, on countless people, and the probability is that any act, however right it be, will have adverse effects ... on some innocent people. Similarly, any wrong act will probably have benecial effects on some deserving people. Every act therefore, viewed in some aspects, will be prima facie right, and viewed in others, prima facie wrong, and ...Ross Theory

... right acts can be distinguished from wrong acts only as being those which, of all those possible for the agent in the circumstances, have the greatest balance of prima facie rightness ... over their prima facie wrongness ... . - Ross (p. 41)Ross Theory RT: an act is morally right if and only if it has the greatest balance of prima facie rightness over prima facie wrongness, as compared with the alternatives, where prima facie rightness and wrongness is determined by the list (a)-(g) above.Ross Theory Example: Promise/Accident Fidelity Benecence ... keep promise; guy dies +5 -100 break promise; save guy -5 +100 balance of prima facie rightness over prima facie wrongness -95 +95 this

column is all a utilitarian would look at this column is what Ross will look atclicker question Which of these statements is true of Ross? A. Unlike a utiiltarian, he thinks that how our acts affect happiness doesnt matter at all. B. Like Kant, he thinks it is always wrong to break a promise. C. Like the Ten Commandments theory, his theory puts forth a list of absolute duties. D. He thinks it can sometimes be wrong to bring about the best outcome.

Act v. rule utilitarianism The distinction has to do with what the principle of utility is applied to.

According to the act utilitarian (AUian), the principle is applied directly to the selection of particular actions under particular circumstances. (For this reason AU has also been called "direct utilitarianism.") According to the rule utilitarian (RUian), the principle is applied to the selection of a set of rules, which are in turn used to determine what to do in particular situations. (And thus RU is sometimes called "indirect utilitarianism.")

Here is a basic description of rule utilitarian reasoning in ethics: 3. Make a list of every possible combination of moral rules that you could live by.

These will vary from very simple sets of rules that will fit on a note card, to short lists of rules like the ten commandments, to very complicated codes with clauses covering all kinds of different contingencies or circumstances which will take up huge volumes, the way the U.S. Code of laws does. 4. Select that set of rules which, if everyone followed them to eternity, would maximize aggregate utility across the whole of time. 5. Then, whatever circumstances you find yourself in, ask yourself, "Is my contemplated action permitted by the set of rules selected in step #2?"

If so then your action is permissible. If not, then it is morally wrong. An imaginative way of seeing this reasoning would be to suppose that you were God, and because you are omnibenevolent, you want your creatures to be as happy as possible in the aggregate across time (that is, you believe in utilitarianism). Now if you were choosing a moral code to teach your created people, what code would you teach them?
Act Utilitarianism is a utilitarian theory of ethics which states that a person's act is morally right if and only if it produces at least as much happiness as any other act that the person could perform at that [1] time. Classical utilitarians, including Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Sidgwick, define [2] happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. To understand how act utilitarianism works, compare the consequences of your watching television all day tomorrow to the consequences of your doing charity work tomorrow. You could produce more overall happiness in the world by doing charity work tomorrow than by watching television all day tomorrow. According to act utilitarianism, then, the right thing for you to do tomorrow is to go out and do charity work; it is wrong for you to stay home and watch television all day [3] tomorrow. Critics sometimes cite such prohibitions on leisure activities as a problem for act utilitarianism. Critics also cite more significant problems, such as the fact that act utilitarianism seems to imply that specific acts of [3] torture or enslavement would be morally permissible if they produced enough happiness. Act utilitarianism is often contrasted with a different theory called rule utilitarianism. Rule utilitarianism states that the morally right action is the one that is in accordance with a moral rule whose general observance would create the most happiness. Rule utilitarianism is sometimes thought to avoid the [1] problems associated with act utilitarianism.

Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right insofar 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 [1] the correctness of the rule of which it is an instance." For rule utilitarians, the correctness of a rule is determined by the amount of good it brings about when followed. In contrast, act utilitarians judge an act in terms of the consequences of that act alone (such as stopping at a red light), rather than judging whether it faithfully adhered to the rule of which it was an instance (such as, "always stop at red lights"). Rule utilitarians argue that following rules that tend to lead

to the greatest good will have better consequences overall than allowing exceptions to be made in individual instances, even if better consequences can be demonstrated in those instances.

Chapter 8: ETHICS
RELATIVISM
People develop their thinking concerning morality over time. They do so as a result of interactions with individuals and social institutions. In different societies each with their own cultures there are different ideas concerning how humans are to behave. Different societies and cultures have different rules, different mores, laws and moral ideas. In the twentieth century people became quite aware of these differences. The impact of this information when coupled with the theories of the Existentialists and Pragmatists became quite significant in the realm of Ethics. The Existentialists with their theory of radical freedom and human choice and responsibility placed morality within the sphere of human decisionmaking. There were no essences before existence of beings and there would be no rules before the existence of the beings who would make the rules for themselves. The Pragmatists also departed from belief in absolutes and generalizations and any universal criteria for judgment. For the pragmatists reality itself was not a given but a human construct and reflective of the societys criteria for judgment concerning truth. So, it came to pass as a part of Post Modernism that there would be a school or tradition of thought that would hold that all thinking about Ethics was also subject to human decision making within a social framework. This school would hold that there are no universal or absolute principles in Ethics to which all humans are to be subject. Through the twentieth century many humans have come to accept a good deal of the relativistic perspective. Relativism has entered into the thinking of many people, even people who would hold for some absolutist ideas. Yes , there are people who hold inconsistent and contradictory ideas concerning morality and ethics. How does this come to be? First let us clarify some terms: Cultural relativism

Descriptive ethical relativism Normative ethical relativism Cultural relativism describes the simple fact that there are different cultures and each has different ways of behaving, thinking and feeling as its members learn such from the previous generation. There is an enormous amount of evidence to confirm this claim. It is well known by just about every human on the planet that people do things differently around the globe. People dress differently, eat differently, speak different languages, sing different songs, have different music and dances and have many different customs. This is a scientific theory well supported by the evidence gathered by cultural anthropologists. Descriptive ethical relativism describes the fact that in different cultures one of the variants is the sense of morality: the mores, customs and ethical principles may all vary from one culture to another. There is a great deal of information available to confirm this as well. What is thought to be moral in one country may be thought to be immoral and even made illegal in another country. This is a scientific theory well supported by the evidence gathered by cultural anthropologists. Examples: Moral in USA Eating Beef Drinking alcohol, Gambling Women in school or business Women wearing shorts, face uncoverd Or the reverse pattern Immoral in India Middle Eastern Islamic Countries Afghanistan Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan

Immoral in USA Killing newborn females Female genital mutilation Family kills a woman family member who is raped

Moral or Acceptable China, India Many African nations (It is female circumcision) Somalia, Sudan

Can you think of other examples?

Normative ethical relativism is a theory, which claims that there are no universally valid moral principles. Normative ethical relativism theory

says that the moral rightness and wrongness of actions varies from society to society and that there are no absolute universal moral standards binding on all men at all times. The theory claims that all thinking about the basic principles of morality (Ethics) is always relative. Each culture establishes the basic values and principles that serve as the foundation for morality. The theory claims that this is the case now, has always been the case and will always be the case. This is a philosophical theory that is NOT well supported by the evidence gathered by cultural anthropologists, nor could science support a theory about the past and future! It is a theory that has evidence against it. (see next lectures) In the next lecture we will examine this theory and its implications and criticisms closely for now consider the table below which shows the contrast between absolutism and relativism. Relativism Absolutism There are universal ethical principles that apply to all humans. There are absolutes. Cultural Relativism There exists a moral core-without which i.society will not flourish ii.individuals will not flourish Descriptive Ethical Relativism Normative Ethical Relativism no universal criteria no absolutes not even tolerance no criticism of majority reduces to subjectivism We should not make moral judgements concerning other individuals and societies.

Skepticism -no moral principles exist

A) there exist moral truths B) Reason can discover truths C) it is in our interest to promote them We do and should judge other individuals and societies with reason and with sympathy and understanding.

Have you ever thought or heard and not challenged the idea that we should not make moral judgments of other people? Have you ever thought that each person must make up his or her own mind about what his or her moral rules will be? Have you ever accepted the idea that "Unless you walk a mile in the other man's moccasins, you can not make a judgment concerning him"? Have you ever thought that while some act might not be morally correct for you it might be correct

for another person or conversely have you thought that while some act might be morally correct for you it might not be morally correct for another person? Have you thought that each person must make up his or her own morality? Well, if you answered, "Yes" to any of the above you have relativistic ideas operating in your thought system. Now you might ask yourself whether or not you really accept those ideas? Do you believe that you must go out and kill several people in order to make the judgment that a serial killer is doing something wrong? Do you really believe that you need to kidnap, rape, kill and eat several young men in order to reach the conclusion that Jeffrey Damer did something wrong, morally wrong and horrible? Do you think that killing newborn babies because they are females is wrong, even for the Chinese? Don't you think that once the Chinese and Indians and Africans have a higher quality of life and are better educated that they will and should stop doing those things that harm, kill or degrade women? If you do you have absolutist ideas working in you as well. How can you hold opposing ideas at the same time? More on relativism in the next section. Proceed to the next section. by clicking here> next section. Copyright Philip A. Pecorino 2000. All Rights reserved. Web Surfer's Caveat: These are class notes, intended to comment on readings and amplify class discussion. They should be read as such. They are not intended for publication or general distribution.

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