Ethical Duties from David Ross's Point of View

Sir David Ross is considered the most prominent figure of deontological ethics after Kant. The present article aims at explaining his ingenious theory of distinguishing between ‘prima facie ethical duties’ and ‘practical ethical duties’ to resolve the conflict which was a problem with Kantian ethics. It further intends to present some important meta-ethical views which have been influential in the normative view of ethics. Ross was an ethical objectivist who believed that moral properties are factual attributes of the world. He was also an ethical intuitionist who believed that the fundamental moral concepts of goodness and rightness are indefinable but human intellect is capable of intuitional understanding of the right and wrong of certain fundamental moral concepts. With regard to values and duties, Ross was a pluralist. In his view, conflict can be detected in prima facie duties and not in practical ethical duties. A prima facie duty is an action which, due to its right-making properties, may seem obligatory but it will become an obligatory practical duty only if there was no other prima facie duty which would have priority over this one. If that is the case, the prioritized duty would become an obligatory practical duty and the prima facie duty would not be obligatory. This way the problem of conflict is resolved.