Write a note on the D. Ross’s idea of human duties.

 Sir William David Ross KBE FBA (15 April 1877-5 May 1971), known as David Ross but usually cited as W. D. Ross, was a Scottish philosopher who is known for his work in ethics. His best known work is The Right and the Good (1930), and he is perhaps best known for developing a pluralist, deontological form of intuitionist ethics in response to G. E.

Moore’s consequentialist form of intuitionism. Ross also critically edited and translated a number of Aristotle’s works, in addition to writing on Greek philosophy.

In The Right and the Good, Ross lists seven prima facie duties, without claiming his list to be all-inclusive: fidelity; reparation; gratitude; justice; beneficence; non-maleficence; and self-improvement.  In any given situation, any number of these prima facie duties may apply. In the case of ethical dilemmas, they may even contradict one another.

Someone could have a prima facie duty of reparation, say, a duty to help people who helped you move house, move house themselves, and a prima facie duty of fidelity, such as taking your children on a promised trip to the park, and these could conflict. Nonetheless, there can never be a true ethical dilemma, Ross would argue, because one of the prima facie duties in a given situation is always the weightiest, and over-rules all the others.

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