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Are Some Prima Facie Duties More Binding than Others?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2010

MICHAEL ROBINSON
MICHAEL ROBINSON*
Affiliation:
Florida State [email protected]
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Abstract

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.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 2010 , pp. 26 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

1 Ross, W. D., The Right and the Good (Oxford, 1930), p. 16Google Scholar.

2 Ross, The Right and the Good, pp. 19–20.

3 McNaughton, David, ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties?’, The Philosophical Quarterly 46 (1996), pp. 433–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 McNaughton, ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties?’, p. 446.

5 Ross, The Right and the Good, p. 22.

6 McNaughton, ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties?’, p. 445.

7 Ross, The Right and the Good, p. 19.

8 McNaughton, ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties?’, p. 445.

9 McNaughton, ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties?’, p. 445.

10 McNaughton, ‘An Unconnected Heap of Duties?’, p. 445.

11 Alternatively, one could perhaps think of a promise as being comparatively trivial in comparison to the good that would be brought about by some benevolent act when it is such that the person to whom the promise was made, insofar as she is reasonable, would condone (if not encourage) breaking the promise in order to bring about that good.

12 This, too, is in keeping with Ross's view of such matters. ‘For the estimation of the comparative stringency of these prima facie obligations’, he says, ‘no general rules can, so far as I can see, be laid down’ (Ross, The Right and the Good, p. 41).

13 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Terence Irwin (Indianapolis, 1985), 1094b13–14, pp. 20–1.

14 I am grateful to David McNaughton for many helpful discussions.