David Ross on The Nature Of Morally Good Action.

Ross holds that virtus is the most important and that some virtuous motives are most important than
others.(Example ; The dedire to do one’s duty is more valuable than the desire to promote others’
pleasure). According to Ross, self-evident intuition shows that there are four kinds of things that are
intrinsically good; pleasure, knowledge, virtue and justice. “Virtue” refers to actions or disaositions to
act from the appropriate motives, for Example from the desire to do one’s duty.

The relationship of Ross’s ideas with Moore’s stems from Ross’s agreement with Moore stems
from Ross’s agreement with Moore that any atemot to define ethical predicates wholly in terms of
natural predicates commits the Naturalistic fallacy. But, Ross argued, Moore’s consequebtialist ethics
actually commits its own fallacy in oosting good-maximization as the only content of the moral ought.
Ross critiised consequentialist ethics theories o f ethics that make the determination of the rightness or
wrongness of acts or decisions based on the consequences of those acts or decisions for several
reasons. (the view that an action is right if it serves the unterests of the agent perfoming it) is mistaken,
Ross claimed, because a large part ofduty consists of respecting the rights and serving the interests of
otger peole without regrd to the costs to us doing so.

Hedonistic Utilitarianism holds that what is good is pleasure, and when there is a choice
between different actions, the action is right which yields the greatest for the greatest number of
people. But,Ross objected, we recognize that there are other things besides pleasure that are
intrinsically good, such as for example, possessing a good character and having an intelligrnt
understanding of the world. Utilitaraianism holds that annaction is ethically right if and only if the ent
amount of intrinsic value produces and is atleast as great as that olroduced by another by any other
possible alternative act or rule. Ross objected that producinh maximum good is not what makes all right
action right, i.e. it is not the whole of ethics, as utilitarians must hold if they are to be faithful to their
utilitaraian theory. According to Ross, is producing maximum intirnisc goodness not a,wys what majes an
action right?. Here Ross appealed to common sense( or intuition), which tells us, he claimed that some
actions such as keeping ptomis are righy not because they produce good consequences but because of
what happened in the past, i.ethe makinh of the promise. In other words, there is a logical and ethical
connection between the past promise and rhe present responsibility for keeping that promise tat is not
cpmpreheded just in considering the consequences. Common sense also tells us, he held, that
sometimes we have more than one duty in that circunstances than another.

Ross offered several criteria for what would count as good or adequate moral theory. It should
“fit the facts” of our pre-theoretical analysis and intuitions, even if this means that the resukting theory
is less simple. Against Utilitarianism and consequentilaist theories, Ross argued that the maximization of
good is only one of the several “prima facie” obligations which play a role in determing the content of
the moral ought in any given case. Ross gives a list of other obligations, a alist that he does not claim is
all-inclusive, he expliciyt admits that other things may need to be added to huis list. In any given
situation he noted, any number of prima facie obligations may appluy. Ross claimed that the solution to
this problem, Ross claimed, comes from bringing to light and ranking those Prima Facie duties, and then
doing the one that ranks highest. Ross was well aware that his theiry does not tell us absolutely what we
are to do in any given situation, in that repect the theories of kant and mill seem superior becsue they
tell us in any case or situation or atlest claim to be able to tell us absolutely what we must we must do.
Ross theory seems to suffer in comparsion because it does not give us what is often called a decision
procedure. Ross was also aware that many acts, depending on how one views them,that act may be
prima facie right or prima facie wrong. Ross replu to those objections to his view was that.

“Every act therefore, viewed in some aspects will be prima facie right, and viewed in others prima facie
wrong, and 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 circukmstances, have the
greates 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 re wrog. It can be said, therefore,that Ross’s
Ethics succeds in bringing together ceratin aspects of consequentialism and certain aspects of
consequentialism and certain aspects of non-consequentialist (deontological) theories. Ross was also
astute enough to recognize that it is almost certainly trhe case that no general rules sufficient to solve all
ethical problems can generally be guien. Ross ethics is based on prima facie duties, creates a hierarchy
of duties, so that, in the case mentioned, the prima facie duty not to tell a lie is overridden by a hugher
duty, nanmely to protect the innocent person from his enemy whi wnts to kill him.