Rawls on Natural Duty and Fairness

My last posting on Rawls looked at the concluding part of Chapter V of A Theory of Justice. In this posting I am going to begin reading Chapter VI of Theory, a chapter that is focused on the twin topics of duty and obligation. The first two sections of this chapter return to a topic that was previously raised in sections 18 and 19 of Chapter I, namely the question of principles for individuals, a topic that I treated in relation to the earlier discussion in Chapter I, here.


The opening section of Chapter VI immediately refers back to Rawls' earlier discussion in Chapter I where principles of fairness and natural duty were outlined but differentiates the treatment now being offered by stating that the purpose of the present discussion is to show the basis of the claim that these principles would be chosen by individuals in the original position. Rawls begins with the question of natural duty (reversing the order of exposition adopted in Chapter I). The key "natural duty" from the standpoint of the theory of justice is supporting and furthering just institutions. There are two parts to this duty. The first part is showing that we comply with and do our share "within" just institutions assuming they exist and have reference to us. The second part is to establish such institutions where they do not exist though Rawls adds the rider "at least when this can be done with little cost to ourselves" which appears to be a kind of prudential limitation on the second part of the duty, one that Rawls does not assume requires justification.


The alternative to this principle of natural duty that Rawls considers is the principle of utility but adoption of this by individuals after the basic structure has been regulated by the two principles of justice is assumed by him to lead to an "incoherent" conception of right. The actions that would be mandated by the principle of utility would not cohere with that demanded by the two principles of justice and should there be an accidental convergence it would lack stability. Hence given that the two principles of justice are regulative of the basic structure it appears that principles for individuals should be congruent with them. This is the reason why Rawls describes natural duty in the way he does. There is still the question of whether the natural duty could not be sensibly qualified by individuals in accord with some general idea of costs and benefits but Rawls rules this out on the basis that the full complement of equal liberties have been guaranteed by the two principles so that there could be nothing further for individuals to bargain for.


In the previous chapter Rawls stressed the importance of public knowledge that an effective sense of justice applied across a well-ordered society. Such a public knowledge produces greater stability and undermines the temptation of free-riding. At this point Rawls differentiates between two kinds of threats to the stability of a system of justice. On the one hand there are self-interested reasons for free-riding that accrue from taking the share of general social goods to be available without requisite effort being needed for all agents. However, in addition to the self-interested way in which free-riding can be articulated, there is also a second type of threat to the stability of systems of justice. This second threat is what arises when people have reason to believe that others will not do their part in relation to the obligations that the system generates. This second kind of instability has a particular urgency when there appear dangers with complying with the demands of institutions. It is a general problem of assurance and is analytically distinct from the tendencies of self-interest as it can create problems even for those committed to principles of a just sort.


How does the assurance problem get responded to in a just system thus enabling it to substantially generate stability of the second sort? There has to be something voluntary about adherence to the institutions in question and this is best achieved by the propagation of natural duty as the key principle for individuals. One of the advantages of such a principle, by comparison with the principle of utility, is that it is simple and clear. However natural duty is not exhausted by the general commitment to just institutions as there are other natural duties in addition. For example, there is the duty to show a person the respect which is due to them as moral beings. In developing this natural duty we need to understand the aims and interests of others in relation to the standpoint of these others and, separately but related, we need to develop a general willingness of persons to do each other small favours and courtesies. The development of mutual respect has mutually beneficial consequences though Rawls neglects here an obvious chance to develop a more extensive account of respect such as appears in Kant due to this discussion (a discussion that really belongs to his theory of "rightness as fairness") being only of a very general character.


Other natural duties include the duty of beneficence that Kant, again, develops a more extended account of and which Rawls does here refer to. What is built in to Rawls' discussion of beneficence, however, is the general public quality of it as a natural duty that is required of us in terms of the assurance it gives us of the character of our fellow citizens. This reference to publicity is part of the general case Rawls makes that whilst the natural duties are not taken by him to be individual cases of a general principle that they are nonetheless all adopted for similar reasons.


Having made these remarks about natural duty, however, Rawls returns to what, following the remarks of section 8 of Chapter I, we can term the "priority problem" with regard to the relationship between distinct principles of natural duty. Rawls shows no evident path through this problem referring only to "certain procedures of aggregation" that are meant to enable us to take a larger view but only illustrating this (and not in this section) by reference to the problems of civil disobedience and conscientious refusal to which I will return in a later posting.


The remaining parts of section 51 are concerned with the relationship between a duty other things being equal (taken by  Rawls to be equivalent to W.D. Ross' notion of prima facie duties) and a duty all things considered. A principle does not express a universal statement which always suffices to establish how we should act on Rawls' account but, rather, singles out relevant features of moral situations such that these features lend support to a certain ethical judgment. By contrast, when prima facie duties are invoked, we are, according to Rawls, deliberately restricting our range to only a certain part of a larger scheme of reasons. These general remarks are, to say the least, hardly helpful in resolving the questions raised by Ross and whilst Rawls concludes section 51 with an agreement with Ross that the Kantian distinction between perfect and imperfect duties is inadequate, this agreement on Rawls' part is not based on any kind of careful assessment of the Kantian distinction and nor is it obviously related to the overall question of the connection between prima facie duties and duties all things considered. This concluding part of section 51 is a disappointing discussion, particularly after the general account of natural duties.


Section 52 turns to an examination of the principle of fairness and Rawls opens the section with the bold claim that "all obligations arise" from this principle. Fairness is what mandates that cooperative ventures should involve similar acquiescences with regard to restrictions on conduct. Hence obligations arise only given that the right background conditions are secured. By contrast, unjust arrangements are a form of extortion so that consent to them is not of a form that can be said to really be binding on conduct.


However, it might be argued that assuming that the natural duties hold then it follows that there is no requirement for an additional principle of fairness. Whilst this has some merit with regard to the basic structure, however, it has none in regard to voluntary conduct of citizens in relation to each other. Rawls also distinguishes between obligations and duties on the grounds that they arise in different ways. So the better-placed members of societies are more likely to emerge as its rulers and this binds them more tightly than others to the scheme of justice. This form of being bound is what we can view as the imposition of "obligations" upon these citizens whilst "duties" refer to the more general and varied considerations that were adduced in section 51. Viewed this way it is in relation to the general principle of fairness that obligations are best understood as generated and regulated whilst duties are preferably understood as governed by the reference to natural duty.


Rawls fills out this distinction by describing promising as a form of conduct that is governed by the principle of fairness. Promising expresses a general intent to perform an action as an obligation voluntarily undertaken on the basis that when others give one promises there is a similar expectation that they will be fulfilled. This assumes certain general conditions of "normal" promising are met. When the practice of promising is just it assumes voluntary and stable conditions apply and these conditions are what make the practice a just one. But the rule of promising is not itself expressive of a commitment to fidelity since it simply, on Rawls' view, states a convention whereas the moral principle in question is that of fidelity, a principle that is based upon the principle of fairness.


Promising is, however, something that is done with a public intention of incurring an obligation and this is integral to it being governed by the principle of fidelity. We both want the practice that expresses such an obligation to exist and we expect others to be aware of our willingness to be governed by the obligation in question. So the practice requires mutual confidence to make sense. Such confidence and trust allow for mutually advantageous schemes of cooperation to develop. This is why the principle of fairness can be seen to be one that would be agreed to in the original position.


However it is interesting to bring out that it is an important consequence of Rawls' view of fairness that institutions do not, in themselves, mandate moral requirements. We have seen this in the case of promising as the rules of it are not equivalent for Rawls to the principle of fidelity. It is only by assumption of the principle of fairness that the latter arises, it cannot be assumed simply on the basis of the rules of promises alone but is rather what regulates these rules and gives them moral sense. So moral reasons are those which enable a judgment to be made that refers us to generic principles as governing our practices.

Justice As Reciprocity (II)

In the last posting I did on this topic the focus on methodological devices was prominent. Rawls reaches the conclusion, however, that there is a close relationship between the principles of justice and the sense of justice. And from this connection he states some key points, including the argument that justice is "the first moral virtue" as it arises from the concept of morality being related to self-interested persons in similar situations. Effectively, if it is possible at all to transcend the bounds of rational self-interest then this is the concept that we reach when we do so.


From the "conjectural derivation" as Rawls here terms the "original position" we have an assured root of both justice and fairness in reciprocity. Reciprocity is connected to the notion of free peoples relating to each other in a situation where no one possesses moral authority over another and we find ourselves engaged in some kind of mutual endeavour. Interestingly connected to this stress on reciprocity is the sense that just principles are ones that require people to be able to affirm them when they openly face one another. So Rawls builds in a publicity constraint on the principles that can be understood as ones of justice.


This publicity constraint is one that enables communicative relations between people and without it there can only be relations between people based on force. After building in this publicity constraint Rawls distinguishes fairness and justice from each other in order to be able to connect them back together. Fairness, on Rawls' view, applies to practices where there is either a competition between people or a cooperative activity in which they have no compulsion to participate. This is why the notion of fairness applies particularly to games and yet also to trade and bargaining. Justice, by contrast, applies to practices in which there is no choice whether or not one participates. There is, that is, an element of necessity in justice which applies to institutions that are generally pervasive or to practices which, if limited in application, are nonetheless ones that have no optional character for those involved in them.


Judging practices by reference to mutual acknowledgement of principles is to engage in applying the principle of reciprocity to their justification. So if one is engaged in a practice that we can acknowledge as satisfying the principle of reciprocity and so we can accept that its rules are either fair or just then we have no grounds of complaint with regard to it. So, for example, if the rules in question limit our sphere of activity in some important respects, then we have a right to expect that others will acknowledge in their own turn the same kinds of limits. If the practice is understood to be just or fair then there is a basic sense in which we all benefit from participation in it.


When one has thus acknowledged the practice in question as satisfying in this way the principle of reciprocity then it becomes the case that one has a "prima facie" obligation to abide by its rules. This obligation is what Rawls earlier referred to as the duty of fair play. Rawls admits, however, that in terming political obligation the duty of fair play he is extending the use of "fair" here beyond ordinary usage which only relates to acting in accordance with the spirit of a practice. But Rawls regards it as a not "unnatural extension" to incorporate the general obligation to abide by the rules in question as part of the duty of fair play as it requires that expecting the benefits of a practice to accrue to one does mean agreeing to the basis of that practice.


This point involves familiar considerations of "free-riding" that arose already in Rawls' earlier paper on justice as fairness. The interesting point about listing fair play as a prima facie duty is that in so doing Rawls deliberately adopts the language of W.D. Ross' intuitionism (though without referring to Ross). The justification of the general duty of fair play is clear in relation to the earlier mentioned publicity constraint since it meshes with this constraint in a natural way. Rawls further indicates that the recognition of the duty of fair play is not only closely meshed with the publicity constraint but that it is also an essential part of the recognition of another as a person. "To recognize another as a person one must respond to him and act towards him in certain ways; and these ways are intimately connected with the various prima facie duties." In making this point Rawls explicitly attempts to take the notion of prima facie duties away from intuitionist views and incorporate it instead in a basic act of recognition.


This point about recognition is used further in relating fairness to justice in terms of the earlier distinction between voluntary and involuntary engagement of practices. If fairness applies to practices in which one engages voluntarily then it is obvious that no one willingly agrees to play in a game that is stacked against them. So in relating the notion of fair practices to justice we effectively act as if practices that were carried out necessarily had in them the freedom we express in situations of choice. 


Having reached this point in the analysis Rawls turns next to a comparison between this notion of justice as reciprocity and the utilitarian view. The utilitarian view is taken to be in clear conflict with the notion of justice Rawls has advanced due to the over-riding concern of utilitarians being with efficiency in which administrators are concerned with rules that have little relation to justice. Utilitarian calculation is concerned with preferences and interests so that it engages in abstraction from the separation of persons. 


Rawls presses the case about the difference by considering the case of slavery. Utilitarian calculations concerning it have to begin with the interests of all concerned and, whilst they may well produce from this analysis, a condemnation of slavery, there is a fault at the root of such a conception as it does not relate to the slave-holder and slave in terms of reciprocity. If one has reciprocity at the root then you cannot regard the slave-holder's interests as in way relevant in making out the injustice of the institution that he perpetrates. This does not mean that it could never be treated as provisionally excusable but it could only be related to as such if there was an advance in the reciprocal understanding involved in it on what had previously been established and not at all with regard to interests of a slave-holder. 


The principles of justice that Rawls has specified could never select slavery as a bearable system and these principles have special weight in determining the character of reciprocity. Following on the earlier stress on the notion of recognition Rawls subsequently points out that all the elements of justice as reciprocity are involved in Kant's formula of humanity as an end in itself. The general point of the argument, however, and this is importantly different from where Rawls ends up in Political Liberalism, is to show the moral roots of the conception of justice that is being justified.

The 12 Key Postings of this Blog in 2010

Generally speaking I have little time for analysis of trends and prospects, whether forward or backward looking. However, reading someone else's blog recently which concerned trends in that blog's coverage did alert me to some issues of importance and it is possible that if I summarize here some of the key trends in last year's postings on this blog that this will similarly alert a reader to some issues of significance so here goes:


January:


Last year opened with a series of postings on ethics, including, perhaps most importantly a piece on ethics and teleology that laid out some of the problems in thinking through the notion that an ethical position was "teleological", a concern that I have had for some time and which continues to exercise me.


February:


Contained a mixture of postings, some on political developments internationally and others on ethics. Perhaps the key posting of the month, and certainly by far and away the most viewed of the year was the piece on W.D. Ross and prima facie duties and the concern to respond to intuitionism in general was a feature of some of the key postings both of January and February. Look out for the return of this topic at some point this year.


March:


A mixture of topics in this month, from considerations about the relationship between morality and rationality to an extended treatment of the nature of heterosexism. Connecting the general topics to the specific political problems addressed during the month was a piece on Kant, objectification and feminism.


March:


Some general postings on philosophy and its relation to the humanities featured alongside analyses of the three main British political parties' election manifestoes, in the run-up to last year's general election. Also began responding to the threat (in the process now of being realised) to close Middlesex University's philosophy department. Of the pieces of the month that gave most philosophical interest however, was likely the piece on cosmopolitanism, coercion and immigration, part of an extended discussion with Tim Waligore.


April:


More news postings on the battle at Middlesex plus some initial responses to the inconclusive British general election but, more importantly than any of those, was the extensive report on the XIth International Kant Congress that was held in Pisa last year and was a fascinating event.


June:


Postings on Rawls and non-ideal theory were made as were pieces on Apple's failed attempts at censorship but the follow-up second piece on ethics and teleology was the most significant, correcting, as it did, a certain impression formed of my book on Kant's practical philosophy.


July:


The month with fewest postings due to holiday commitments last year but which still featured postings on the Rawlsian distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory in addition to a piece on philosophy and authority and an extended report on a workshop in Amsterdam on the Critique of Judgment.


August:


Began some postings on the relationship between Kant and Salomon Maimon and some others on Wilfrid Sellars' response to Kant in the first chapter of Science and Metaphysics. There was also a report on a conference on Maimon and a posting on the phenomenon of epistemic egalitarianism.


September:


For the second year running the month in which most postings were made. Included a great variety of topics from further responses to W.D. Ross on the notion of common sense morality to continuing thoughts on the Rawlsian distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory. The posting on the relationship between the notion of contradiction in the will and the universal law of nature formula of the categorical imperative proved, however, one of the more visited postings and presented some of the most distinctive thoughts.


October:


The publication of the Browne report on higher education funding required a serious and prolonged response as did the beginning of political agitation against the government's move to implement its principal recommendations here in the UK. Controversy with Brian Leiter over a "spoof" of Derrida also produced some lively to-and-fro. However the reading of an early Rawls piece on the nature of rules was a more philosophically important posting.


November:


A further set of postings on the political battle over education cuts appeared alongside continuing pieces on Wilfrid Sellars' reading of Kant and on Salmon Maimon's Essay on Transcendental Philosophy. The piece reflecting on the meaning of respect for persons was, however, more on the mainline of concentration on Kantian ethics.


December:


The first half of the month's postings again concentrated on the agitation in the UK over education cuts culminating with a piece on the vote to raise tuition fees that named and shamed the Liberal Democrat members of parliaments who either voted in favour or refused, at any rate, to vote against. The postings in the second half turned back to questions about the nature of practical reason and normativity with the piece on incentives, intelligence and the nature of reason receiving particularly high viewing and making a case for seeing Korsgaard's view as requiring there to be a maxim-like structure in "instincts".


Putting it all together the concentration of this blog last year on a set of topics is perhaps clearer than was always apparent at the time. Happy reading to anyone who visits the above postings whether to look again or to review their understanding and/or response to them. Postings in 2011 should further concentration on some of the above topics.

W.D. Ross, Common Sense Morality, and Self-Evidence

In The Right and the Good there are a number of references to "what is commonly thought" or held to be the case in terms of morality. Ross also refers at certain points to what the "plain man" thinks. These references are part of a rudimentary notion of "common sense morality" in Ross, a notion inherited from intuitionists of an earlier time (and perhaps a notion systematised first by Henry Sidgwick). However, when he turns to assessing the grounds for taking the claims of such morality seriously then Ross makes an appeal that turns on the "self-evidence" of such "common sense" morals.


The appeal in question is explained by reference to how it is that certain types of claim fail to get dislodged by moral theories. This argument is specifically aimed against consequentialism but would effect other theories that, like the consequentialist one, are revisionist of settled moral convictions. The example given is that of making a promise. When a promise is made we assume that it has binding force independently of any notion of optimific outcomes. When we "reflect" on the notion of a promise we do not find any reference in our understanding of its obligatoriness to considerations of the type that would be expected if it were grounded ultimately on consequentialist considerations. This does not entail that we have to reject any appeal to consequence sensitivity but it does show that even if we decide not to follow the prima facie duty of promise keeping that this does not, in itself, indicate that the ground of the duty is in fact a consequentialist one.


Ross also summarises his understanding of the self-evidence that applies with ethics in terms of a remarkable statement that relates ethical statements to a type of accumulative sedimentation when he writes:

We have no more direct way of access to the facts about rightness and goodness and about what things are right or good, than by thinking about them; the moral convictions of thoughtful and well-education people are the data of ethics just as sense-perception are the data of natural science. Just as some of the latter have to be rejected as illusory, so have some of the former; but as the latter are rejected only when they are in conflict with other more accurate sense-perceptions, the former are rejected only when they are in conflict with other convictions which stand better the test of reflection. The existing body of moral convictions of the best people is the cumulative product of the moral reflection of many generations, which has developed an extremely delicate power of appreciation of moral distinctions; and this the theorist cannot afford to treat with anything other than the greatest respect. The verdicts of the moral consciousness of the best people are the foundation on which he must build; though he must first compare them with one another and eliminate any contradictions they may contain. (40-1.)

This remarkable passage has a number of intriguing elements in it. Firstly, and perhaps most overarchingly, it indicates a limitation on the persuasive power of revisionist theories of morality. These theories need to take seriously the sense that there already exists, prior to their being elaborated, a deep moral sense that has been historically generated. There is a similar point to this made in the first section of Kant's Groundwork where Kant likewise seeks to show that there is already contained in general moral consciousness sufficient for the theorist. Secondly, this limitation on revisionist theories, or certainly on their persuasiveness, is not merely stated in favour of conservatism although a first reading of this passage might suggest so. The point is not that existent moral claims be simply and wholly accepted as apt but rather that the aptness of these claims requires reflective consideration in relation to each other (much like in the case of Rawls' notion of "reflective equilibrium"). Thirdly, the revision allowed room by theory needs to be related to that which works through the consistency and coherency of the general body of convictions. So the revision does not merely succeed due to a general argument in its favour but also has to be stable in relation to the reflective self-criticism of the data of theory, namely, the settled convictions of the "best people". The oddity of the appeal finally resides however in this last point, namely, that there are some people ("the best" or those who are "thoughtful and well-educated") better able generically to carry out the reflective process in question. What enables this ability to reside in such people is not stated and surely it would here have been preferable to refer instead to a procedural mechanism rather than a settled group thought to already itself be a locus of wisdom?

Levels of Generality in Moral Thinking

Before returning to more detailed questions about the relationship of Ross' views to those of Kant it is worth pausing to think about a basic reason why there is emerging a tendency amongst some to invoke Ross as a kind of corrective to Kant. This seems to rest on a claim about the nature of generality in moral thinking. Basically, the suspicion seems to be of the following order. Kant sets out for us a claim for universal principles and this claim poses a general point about the need for generalization for there to be moral principles. However, work on the examples Kant gives in the Groundwork tends to produce frustration on a number of grounds, one of which concerns the alleged "formality" of Kant's treatment in echo of the famous complaint made by Hegel.


In response to this there then tends to emerge a concern with thinking about how to relate formal universal principles to maxims that specifically are such as to be action-guiding. The result of that inquiry tends to be that there is a felt need for something like what Richard Hare once described as "rules of thumb". These rules are meant to play some kind of role (as happens in versions of rule-utilitarianism) that gives us a safeguard way of protecting the principles of "common sense morality" whilst admitting a base of reference to universal principles when trouble arises. This kind of solution produces dissatisfaction of a different sort if the "rules" in question are not thought specific enough and from there we can easily move to invocation of Ross' prima facie duties. The problem, however, with that mode of reconciliation between Ross and Kant is precisely the difficulty that Ross' prima facie duties are not, strictly considered, really duties at all (as demonstrated in previous postings). Then it turns out that perhaps what was "missing" in the response to Kant might turn out to be something more basic than the first response suggested, namely, a comprehension of practical reason. That indicates the rationale for a position like that of Stratton-Lake. 

Suitability and Prima Facie Duties

As I mentioned in the previous posting on W.D. Ross, the suggestion that the relationship between prima facie duties and actual duties might reside in a sense that there was something "suitable" in the situation that called for the performance of the duty has been questioned by one of the foremost contemporary scholars of Ross, Philip Stratton-Lake. Stratton-Lake's suggestion is that this picture of the relationship between prima facie duties and actual duties is "too aesthetic" and, indeed, Ross does refer to an aesthetic sense of harmony when he mentions this view of the relationship between prima facie duties and actual duties. 


However, this reference to an aesthetic sense is far from being sufficient as a discussion of Ross' reference to "suitability" as a basis for connecting prima facie duties and actual duties in the argument of The Foundations of Ethics. Stratton-Lake's account only refers to the first place Ross discusses "suitability" in the third chapter of The Foundations of Ethics but Ross later returns to the topic in the seventh chapter of this book where he simply states that a "right action" means in general "one that is morally suitable to the situation". In returning to the topic here Ross differentiates between various senses of suitability referring to objective and subjective elements. The objective elements of the situation are the elements of it that suggest an action as suitable to the results we think it would produce whilst the subjective elements, by contrast, refer only to our thoughts concerning the probable results of alternative actions.


But this is not the only distinction Ross introduces since he goes on to include the difference between performing an action from a certain motive as involving suitability in a situation in a sense in which a mere action, regardless of motive, does not. This leads to the following apparent clarification:

Both the view that it is our duty to produce certain results, and the view that it is our duty to act from certain motives, are natural enough perversions of what seems to be the true view, that it is our duty to set ourselves to produce certain results. It is sometimes said that it is neither results nor motives but intentions that make actions right or wrong, and this is almost true. There is a certain danger in laying the stress on intention, since intentions may remain idle; but it would be true to say that the nature of what is intended in an act is what makes the act right or wrong. (pp. 159-60.)

Here Ross' prose almost catches one out as in the first sentence it takes a very attentive ear to note the difference between having a duty to produce certain results on the one hand and having the duty "to set ourselves" to produce results on the other. However the difference is nicely caught when Ross arrives at the notion that it is intention "in the act" that is at issue. This is a clear attempt to bring together the focus on the action alone (viewed as productive of result) on the one hand or the motive alone (viewed in some sense purely) on the other. And it is a further feature of consequence-sensitivity that some such attempt is needed. So perhaps Stratton-Lake is being far too hasty in suggesting that attention to the situation is too aesthetic an account of the connection between prima facie duties and actual duties. And, perhaps more needs to be filled in on the notion of "intention". 

Prima Facie Duties and Moral Reasons

The discussion of W.D. Ross' notion of prima facie duties has clearly brought out that there is quite a bit that is odd in the description of them as "prima facie duties". The oddness at first seems to attach to the description of them as being prima facie when Ross is clear that these duties are not ones that only "appear" to be duties but are, rather, ones that have a real claim upon us even in situations where we find we cannot follow them. That this claim exists appears to be understood by Ross in a rather realist way as part of the account of what exists in the situation. Shortly after writing The Right and the Good Ross returned to the topic of prima facie duty in his next work The Foundations of Ethics. 


In this later work Ross responds in part to C. D. Broad's view that there is attached to the notions of "right" and "wrong" some sense of "appropriate" and "inappropriate" or, in the language he takes from Samuel Clarke, that there is something of "fitness" attached to what it is that is right. On these grounds Ross describes rightness as involving "the greatest amount of suitability possible in the circumstances". However he still wishes this to be distinguished from anything like a utilitarian notion and rather conceives of moral suitability by an analogy with aesthetic suitability (perhaps with echoes of G.E. Moore in his thoughts). As Ross puts this:

There seems to be something not altogether different from the way in which a situation calls for a certain act, and the way in which one part of a beautiful whole calls for the other parts. Here, as in the case of a right act, there is no question of subserving an extraneous purpose; there is a direct harmony between the parts of the composition, as there is between a moral situation and the act which completes it. (54)

This conception of "harmony" is one that Ross has related to a sense of the whole situation just as the account of prima facie duty in The Right and the Good required. As with the earlier account this still leaves room for a commitment to pluralism:

Our common use of the word 'right' is so fluid that, although what it naturally conveys is simply the notion of fitness or correctness, without implying either that there is only one act or emotion that fits the situation, or that it is in the agent's power to produce the act or emotion in question, yet by usage 'right' is very often treated as equivalent to 'obligatory'. (55)

Some fine questions emerge for Ross concerning the sense of "obligatory" in the sentences that follow but, leaving this aside here, the notion of "right" understood in this way becomes one that leaves open the question of whether there is, as Ross has here said, "only one act or emotion that fits". So what is right (in this new sense of "fitting") may well not be only one act or emotion and what would be right might not even be something we could do but it is still what would, in some way, make the situation harmonious.

Intriguingly, Philip Stratton-Lake , a foremost expert on Ross, is somewhat disturbed by this account of prima facie duties in terms of fittingness which he describes as too aesthetic a notion to account for the relation between prima facie and actual rightness. In making this point Stratton-Lake indicates a wish to find in Ross an account of practical reason as becomes clear when he discusses prima facie duties as "principles of moral salience" that describe which types of consideration are salient in determining whether something should be done or ought not to be done. In understanding  
prima facie duties in this way Stratton-Lake suggests that the real problem with Ross' expression "prima facie duties" rests not, ultimately with the stress on prima facie but instead with the stress on duty. Ross does indicate that the word duty is indeed wrong here when he first introduces the notion of prima facie duty in The Right and the Good stating there such a "duty":

is not in fact a duty, but something related in a special way to duty. (20)

This "special way" is now suggested by Stratton-Lake to be that the principles of prima facie duties provide "normative moral reasons, rather than principles of duty".

This suggests two questions to close this posting on that I will pursue in future ones. Firstly, is Stratton-Lake right to think that the notion of "suitability" or "fittingness" is "too aesthetic" a relation between prima facie duty and actual duty? Secondly, if the principles of prima facie duty are really principles of practical reason rather than principles of duty then how do such principles relate to the Kantian sense of "duty"? This latter question is the one with real bite since it will enable me in future postings to trace out the manner in which Stratton-Lake (and others) postulate a connection between Ross and Kant in contemporary moral theory. 

W.D. Ross and prima facie duties

In his account of what makes right acts right Ross arrives at the notion of prima facie duty and, as we shall see in subsequent postings, this account is one that has been taken by some recent authors to be worth building in to a revised description of some aspects of Kant's moral theory. Because it has been so adapted it is worth exploring in this posting exactly the motivations for Ross' introduction of it and giving a careful characterisation of the view of such duties that he explicitly presents.


The discussion of these duties occurs early in the second chapter of The Right and the Good. Ross has been expressing dissatisfaction with utilitarianism and its commitment to viewing production of amounts of good as the basis for what makes right acts right (which has been rendered in recent treatments as making the good prior to the right). In opposing this position Ross refers to a "plain man" making a promise because he thinks he ought to do so, a situation that in this case is one that Ross takes to involve no thought of consequences. However, whilst this seems like a simple and direct opposition to the utilitarian position Ross in fact concedes a point to the utilitarian enquiry because he admits that circumstances can so conspire that fulfilling a promise is something that can have very adverse consequences such that we judge it right not to do this. Hence, whilst fulfilment of the promise might well be performed for reasons that have no reference to consequences the action of non-fulfilment of the promise is one that arises in an account in which consequences are taken account of.


Now, examples follow this statement that help to clarify it such as the point that the promise might concern something relatively trivial and non-fulfilment of it might be due to attending to victims of an accident. However, the example is clearly not the real point since its salient characteristic has already been described by including references to consequences so Ross' account appears to have become consequence-sensitive. This doesn't entail for him, though, that the reason for such sensitivity is due to a commitment to bringing about more good in the world. If this is not the reason then there can be a basis for consequence-sensitivity that does not lead one to embrace consequentialism.


It is when considering this point that Ross first introduces the notion of prima facie duties. In the example cited we can balance the duty of fulfilling a promise against a duty of relieving distress but, and here comes the specific mention, this latter notion does not strictly speaking involve thought of a duty but instead of "things that tend to be our duty, or prima facie duties" (18n). This is defined by the notion that there can be circumstances in which something that tends to be a duty can be set against something similar and one or the other of them will, "in the circumstances", tend to be more of a duty.


So the notion of prima facie is introduced as a way of speaking about consequence-sensitivity with the conception being that such sensitivity arises when there would be a conflict between two candidates for a duty to be performed which cannot both be adopted in the circumstances. Ross terms them, not unreasonably, "cases of conscience". This view is summarised neatly in the following statement:

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 significant. (19)

So the prima facie duties are ones that we would, were it not for other intervening factors (involving consequence-sensitivity) simply accept as being duties proper. Since the latter elements have to be taken account of, Ross also describes such prima facie duties as "conditional" duties. Ross' terminology here is awkward as he freely admits since the prima facie duty is, considered simply as a prima facie duty, not yet a duty at all. Further the expression "prima facie" suggests that it may only be a deceptive feature that leads us to think of the "duty" in question as being such whereas this is not Ross' view since he rather takes it that such "duties" include in them factors that render them quite clearly such as to involve a claim upon us (although he also has problems with the word "claim" since this refers mainly to others rather than to ourselves).  The fundamental point about them is that they "rest on a definite circumstance which cannot seriously be held to be without moral significance" (20).


Turning next to the description of what falls under the heading of such "prima facie duties" Ross gives six classes of them. The first group involves duties that arise from previous acts I have committed and this first group is divisible into two classes, basically duties of fidelity and reparation. The second group rest on previous acts of others and are duties of gratitude. With regard to both these first two groups Ross subsequently corrects the way he has described them as they seem to involve motives and he does not wish to suggest we have duties to have certain motives so the disposition to fulfil a promise does not require we adopt a motive to so fulfil it but only that we fulfil it because the promise has been made (and so created an "objective situation" regardless of our motives). Similarly "gratitude" is something that refers to certain acts of ours not the adoption of an emotion of gratitude.


The third class refers to duties of justice with reference here to distribution of pleasure or happiness with regard to merit. The fourth group of duties is duties of beneficence where we attempt to make other peoples situation better. The fifth group is duties of self-improvement and the sixth is non-maleficence towards others.


So what the theory of prima facie duties involves Ross in a commitment to is a pluralism about the right. These different potential grounds of a duty are not equivalent to each other for him or reducible to some other ground that is taken to be more basic (though he does later indicate that he thinks the grounds of beneficence and self-improvement are the same). In moral experience we find the situation to be even more complicated since these prima facie duties are there compounded. This ensures that Ross' account is certainly not tidy:

Every act therefore, viewed in some aspects, will be prima facie right, and viewed in others, prima facie wrong, and 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, in those respects in which they are prima facie right, over their prima facie wrongness, in those respects in which they are prima facie wrong...For the estimation of the comparative stringency of these prima facie obligations no general rules can, so far as I can see, be laid down. (41)

 Immediately after making this claim, one that seems to lead towards a strict form of particularism, Ross qualifies it by indicating that duties of "perfect obligation" have a greater stringency and he describes those as the duties of fidelity, reparation and gratitude adding that with the rest the decision "rests with perception". In subsequent postings I want to look at how some contemporary theorists have treated Ross' view of prima facie duties as a means of modifying the Kantian approach to ethics.

W.D. Ross and Intuitionism

I suggested earlier, when I first introduced the topic of intuitionism, that it would be incorrect to characterise this view of ethics as directly competitive with consequentialism. One of the reasons why it is not is because intuitionism in fact occupies a number of different roles in moral theory. One of those roles is as a form of account of moral knowledge and, indeed, it is its role in this aspect that is most often referred to when people think of intuitionism. In this role, however, it need not be incompatible with consequentialism as is seen in the case of G.E. Moore who adopts an intuitionist view of moral epistemology but whose normative principles embody what is often termed an "ideal utilitarianism". 


Moore's combination of intuitionism with a version of utilitarian normative principles is certainly intriguing though, it has to be said, that his normative principles have been rarely taken that seriously in the history of ethics (despite apparently having some influence on the Bloomsbury Group!). William David Ross is a different kind of character and his work embodies a combination of intuitionist epistemology with an approach to normative principles that is decidedly non-consequentialist. Ross' most famous work is surely The Right and the Good and in this work Ross argues that neither "the right" nor "the good" can be understood in a monistic way.


Essentially Ross distinguishes "the right" from "the good" by indicating that the former concerns what is obligatory and concerning this he departs clearly from consequentialism as when he writes: 


"An act is not right because it, being one thing, produces good results different from itself; it is right because it is in itself the production of a certain state of affairs. Such production is right in itself, apart from any consequence." (pp. 46-7.)


There is, then, as he puts it on page 47, some "intrinsic rightness" attaching to certain types of act due to the nature of these acts regardless of any reference to consequences. So, whatever it is that is "right" is not so judged in terms of anything like the normative principles adopted by Moore. If we next turn to how Ross accounts for "the good" we might then expect that in relation to this we could yet find some kind of admixture such as applied to the case of Moore. However, this is not so. With regard to the property of "goodness" Ross claims that it is objective and intrinsic to the things that are good. These things include virtue, pleasure, the allocation of pleasure to the virtuous, and knowledge, but moral goodness is taken primarily to consist in adoption of a sense of duty (despite the fact that this is not itself something we are "obliged" to adopt on Ross' view of "the right"). Hence the account of moral goodness, like that of rightness, turns away from a consequentialist account and when Ross repudiates assessing rightness in terms of production of consequences he rejects any view of moral goodness that sees the latter as determinative of rightness due to the former being understood in a productive sense. Hence Ross appears to come much closer to the ideal type of deontologist that Broad describes. To this needs to be added a fuller consideration of the way the normative structure of Ross' theory works in relation to acts and rules. This requires, however, a discussion of his account of prima facie duties, a topic that needs a separate posting.