Ross made a compelling argument that when people abide by a promise, they do so because of that

promise and for no other reason. The reader is left to infer that we should therefore discard a
utilitarian theory that justifies behavior according to the resulting utility. Ross's argument implicitly
assumes that the proximal motives of an act are or should be used to identify moral justification. An
alternative might be that some people act in certain ways because it is the local custom but the
moral justification for the behavior might lie elsewhere. In other words, some people do the right
thing without understanding the entire lineage of ethical thought that justifies it.

Ross continued this examination of keeping promises by describing how he would deal with
conflicts. He gave an example of promising to meet somebody for some trivial purpose and then
later realizing that if he breaks that promise he can prevent a serious accident. He denied that the
foundation for such an exception pertains to utility and instead argued that he has higher duty of
reliving stress (of others). If we accept Ross's hierarchy of duties, his argument would stand, but if
we question the basis by which that hierarchy can or should be constructed, we again see the
usefulness of the principle of utility. Without an underlying first principle, the selection of and
prioritization of principles would become increasingly subjective.

Ross presented a list of six types of duties without claiming that the list is exhaustive.
Schaber [3] summarized these duties as follows (with added comments):
1. duties of fidelity and reparation (promises, contracts, or compensating somebody for
harm caused),
2. duties of gratitude (returning a favor),
3. duties of justice,
4. duties of beneficence,
5. duties of self-improvement, and
6. duties of non-maleficience (do no harm).

Ross opposed the impartiality of utilitarianism (i.e., he opposed treating the happiness of all people
equally)

The essential defect of the 'ideal utilitarian' theory is that it ignores, or at least does not do full
justice to, the highly personal character of duty. If the only duty is to produce the maximum of
good, the question who is to have the good -- whether it is myself, or my benefactor, or a person to
whom I have made a promise to confer that good on him, or a mere fellow man to whom I stand in
no such special relation -- should make no difference to my having a duty to produce that good. But
we are all in fact sure that it makes a vast difference.
This challenge to the impartiality clause of utilitarianism is most effective as a criticism of
utilitarianism as a personal ethic as opposed to utilitarianism as a political philosophy. A legislator
should clearly treat people fairly and not disregard the well-being of a group of people. Ross would
argue that the impartiality clause of utilitarianism would command that wealthy parents refrain from
buying nice things for their children unless they first address the needs of starving children in far-
away lands. He argued that people do show preferences (such as for family members) and that
utilitarianism clearly does not describe what people do--implying that utilitarianism is therefore
wrong.

At this point we see the need to identify criteria for the selection of a method for identifying moral
principles. Based on Ross's example, we can choose from several alternatives:

1. reject utilitarianism because it seems to contradict what we do,

2. accept the principle of utility and follow the internally-consistent implications thereof to
conclude that strong violations of the impartiality clause are immoral--even if the act is
between parent and child, or
3. identify some error in the analysis to prevent the dilemma.

Brad Hooker's Reply  Edit

Brad Hooker[4] criticized ethical pluralism. Much of his article is also presented in the introduction
to a subsequent book[5] that also contained a few revisions. The discussion here will follow the
1996 article, unless noted otherwise, because the article provided the structure for the argument
against pluralism.

Hooker began his criticism of ethical pluralism by following four criteria to determine the strength
of moral theories. The criteria says that theories must

1. be internally coherent,
2. be consistent with (our most defensible) existing moral beliefs after careful consideration,
3. identify a general principle that unifies specific principles, and
4. help to resolve difficult moral questions. (p. 531)
Hooker presented a variation of this list elsewhere [6]. Hooker referred to the second thesis above
as reflective equilibrium (p. 532) and noted critics of it who argue that ethical beliefs vary by
culture, thereby indicating the need to step outside our existing system of ethical beliefs (p. 532).
After acknowledging the strength of these criticisms, Hooker gave a counter example by saying that
some intuitional ethical beliefs cannot be discarded by adopting an external perspective (the
example is of the unacceptability of torturing innocent people for fun; p. 533). Where Ross
suggested that we know fundamental moral principle through intuition, Hooker avoided assuming
how we know them and referred to such principles as convictions as opposed to intuitions (p. 533).
The three principles of Ross's pluralism, according to Hooker, are that there are many first
principles of ethics, that these principles can sometimes conflict with one another, and that there is
no system for resolving the priority of these conflicts (p. 534). A strength of Ross's system is that it
can match our existing moral beliefs by simply listing them (p. 535).

The conflict between utilitarianism and Ross's pluralism is in the third thesis that Hooker presented:
the suggestion that moral theories should be related by a higher-level theory (p. 535-536). Hooker
argued that such a unifying theory might help to resolve the most enduring ethical debates.

Hooker's proposed solution is his version of rule-consequentialism in which actions are considered
to be ethical when they abide by the ethical rule that, if internalized by most people, would result in
the best outcome--with any ties being settled by deferring to existing morality (p. 537). For a more
complete discussion of Hooker's rule-consequentialism, see his book: Ideal Code, Real
World (2000), were he added the suggestion that there might be reason to adjust the distribution of
well-being by favoring the worst-off.
Rule-consequentialism meet's Hooker's fourth criteria by suggesting that moral conflicts should be
resolved by evaluating the consequences. Ross's system might allow for resolution of conflicts by
applying ethical principles to the conditions that led to acceptance of those principles (p. 541), but
Hooker noted two difficulties of resolving moral conflicts from within Ross-style pluralism. His
example was that the principle of chastity might be in conflict with a principle of beneficence
(providing pleasure to each other), but Ross-supporters cannot claim that beneficence always wins
(p. 542). Perhaps Hooker was referring to the internal conflict between accepting ethical plurality in
which each principle is independently self-evident and simultaneously declaring that one principle
is the basis upon which all other principles should be judged. Hooker's second criticism of Ross-
style resolution of moral conflicts is that Ross-style pluralists who insist that the first principles are
ungrounded remove their ability to judge one principle according to another principle.

THE CALL OF DUTIES (THOUGHTS ON W.D. ROSS’S THE RIGHT AND THE GOOD) PT I

For a person who professes to be a proponent of ethical pluralism (which posits the CALL
OF prima facie DUTIES), I am surely among the few who have not read W.D. Ross’s The Right
and the Good from cover to cover (I have read excepts in anthologies, and secondary sources, of
course). I was gifted a copy of the book by my lovely girlfriend for Christmas, and thought I might
share some of my notes on Ross’s work as an entry here, due to the frequency with which this blog
touches on pluralism, and moral realism.

Notes on The Right and the Good section I: The Meaning of Right

Ross Against Monistic Deontology, Particularly Kantianism

Ross begins The Right and the Good by noting that the meaning of right is not the same as the
meaning of good, such that it is not true that the morally right act is the morally good act. This is
done to refute Kantianism, due to Ross’s interest in rejecting Kant’s monistic deontological view
for the pluralistic deontological view Ross hopes to prove true.

The argument is as follows:

1. If ‘right’ and ‘good’ have the same meaning, and rightness confers an obligation, then it is
obligatory to do good acts.

2. If an act is good then it is from a good motive.

3. If it is not obligatory to act from a good motive, then it is not obligatory to do good acts.

4. It is not obligatory to act from a good motive.

5. So it is not obligatory to do good acts (modus ponens from 3).

6. Thus, is it not the case that ‘right’ and ‘good’ have the same meaning (modus tollens from 1).

In Ross’s own words his argument is thus, “If, then, we can show that action from a good motive is
never morally obligatory, we shall have established that that what is morally good is never right,
and a fortiori that ‘right’ does not mean the same as ‘morally good’” (TR&TG, page 4). Ross thinks
that all can agree to premises one and two, and that premise three logically follows from premise
two, such that if premise four is true, affirming the antecedent in premise three to confirm the
consequent, the argument goes through. So the entire argument rests on premise four. Ross provides
two arguments for why premise four is true.

The first argument is that it is not obligatory to act from a good motive because of the Kantian
principle “ought implies can” or “‘I ought’ implies ‘I can’”. In order to be obligated to act from a
good motive implies that I can choose to have a good motive for an action. Ross denies that one can
make this choice; it seems to him that this would require more control over our motives than we
have. Thus, for Ross, because I cannot choose to act from a good motive, I cannot be obligated to
act from a good motive.

I’m not very convinced by this argument for premise four, because I think Ross is demanding too
much for what I can and cannot do. It doesn’t seem necessary that I can choose which motives I
have in order to be obligated to act on good motives. The required ‘I can’ seems to be the ‘I can’ of
it being possible for me to have good motives for acts. In other words, if it is possible for me to
have good motives for acts, then I am obligated to act from good motives. On the other hand, if it is
not possible for me to have good motives for acts, perhaps due to some cognitive disorder, then I
am not obligated to act from good motives. From this it doesn’t follow that I am not obligated to do
morally good actions, I still have this obligation; I am just not obligated to have good motives for
those actions, as it is not possible for me to. But note what has now been said negates premise three
of Ross’s initial argument, one of the two premises that is necessary for Ross’s argument that right
and good have different meanings to go through. So, in order to Ross’s main argument to succeed
he must not rely on Kant’s “ought implies can” principle, as I have argued that it causes more
problems than it solves for Ross’s view.

Fortunately for Ross, his second argument for the truth of premise four is superior to his first. The
bare structure of the second argument is that if it is our duty to act from a certain motive, and this
certain motive is to act in accord with duty, then it seems we reach a reductio ad absurdum, and this
principle become vacuous. Consider: if my duty is to do act A from a certain motive, and that
motive is my duty to do act A, then what explains my motive to act on a duty to do act A for the
duty of act A other than the motive to act for a duty to act for a motive to act for a duty to do act A?
But what explains this motive to act on a duty for act A other than another motive to act on a duty,
and so on, ad infinitum.
I think this argument is successful in showing that one is obligated to do good acts, but not
obligated to act from a good motive, such as acting for the sake of duty, as acting for the sake of
duty never completely explains why we would perform acts for the sake of duty. As Ross notes,
“the only conclusion that can be drawn is that our duty is to do certain things, not to do them from a
sense of duty” (TR&TG, page 6).

Concluding Notes on the Matter

So, Ross’s reductio ad absurdum argument gives us reason to accept premise four, and assuming
the truth of the other premises, reason to accept the conclusion that ‘right’ and ‘good’ do not have
the same meaning. However, I argued that a correct usage of the “ought implies can” principle
serves as evidence against premise three, an essential premise to Ross’s desired conclusion.
Given the strength of Ross’s reductio ad absurdum argument, I think Ross would be well advised to
change his argument to rely more on that argument, and less on the premise that “if it is not
obligatory to act for a good motive then it is not obligatory to do good acts”. I do think this is
possible.

Here is the revised argument as I would state it:

1. If ‘right’ and ‘good’ have the same meaning, and rightness confers an obligation, then it is
obligatory to do good acts.

2. If it is obligatory to do good acts then it is obligatory to act from a good motive.

3. It is not obligatory to act from a good motive.

4. So, it is not obligatory to do good acts (modus tollens from 2).

5. Therefore, ‘right’ and ‘good’ do not have the same meaning (modus tollens from 1).

This argument is very similar to Ross’s, except while Ross’s troublesome premise was premise
three, the corrected premise is here premise two. Ross’s premise had the unsightly consequence that
if a person could not have good motives then they were not obligated to have good motives, and
thus, they were not obligated to do good acts. Here, in premise two, all that is being claimed (with
the “ought implies can” principle in the background) is that if a person can do good acts then they
are obligated to do good acts, and thus, they are obligated to act from a good motive if they can.
This premises avoids the problems that arose for Ross by his selected premise, thus making it part
of a revised argument superior to Ross’s original, making use only of the reductio ad
absurdum argument as evidence for the essential premise (four in the original, three in the revised)
and avoiding the problems caused by mistakenly uses the “ought implies can” principle.