Prima Facie Duties Flashcards
H.A Pritchard
-built on Moores work
-reason collects the facts and intuition determines which course of action to follow.
-distinguished between:
1.General Thinking
2.Moral Thinking
whats general thinking?
-reasoning
-used to assess the facts of a situation
whats moral thinking?
-based on an immediate intuition about the right thing to do.
W.D.Ross
-what is right is always unique, depending on what is ‘morally suitable’ for the situation a person is in/
-never know all the facts about a situation = base our judgement about whats right and wrong on intuitions.
-obvious that certain types of actions are right.
-he called these Prima Facie Duties
-when these duties conflict- follow what we think is right in that situation - first sight duties.
W.D Ross - conflicting duties
- people sometimes have conflicting duties and it may not be obvious which should take priority.
Prima Facie Duties
- keep our promises
- pay back the harm we do to others
- not to injure others
4.return favours and services given to us by others - not harm innocent people
- look after parents.
what do prima facie duties mean?
-“first face”
-no conflicting circumstances between these duties, then each duty is absolute
-if there is conflict then I have to balance them and consider what to do.
-we should reasonable and sensible enough to work this out .
moral intuition
-when forced to consider conflicting duties, then if I really do consider them as well as I can, then common sense/ intuition will tell me what I ought to do.
strengths of intuitionism
-argaubly allows us to answer issues clearly and instantly
-it appeals to human nature (we do use our intuition to decide right from wrong)
-it avoids complex debate as to what is good (we cant define good)
weaknesses
-normative ethics would argue good can be defines
-non cognitive ethics would argue morality is subjective
-peoples intuitions differ.
