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The Right and the Good and W. D. Ross's Criticism of Consequentialism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

David Wiggins
David Wiggins
Affiliation:
New College, Oxford
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Abstract

David Ross made the first sustained attack on Moore's agathistic utilitarianism or ethical neutralism – the first attack, that is, on a consequentialism purified of ethical naturalism. Ross started out with an important idea about the difference (in the sphere of action) between the right and the good, and a good appreciation of the dialectical situation about consequentialism. His attack, based on the personal character of duty, is greatly hampered by his imperfect account of the duty of beneficence and the supposed general prima facie duty to promote the good. In due course, duties of other kinds come to appear as exceptions to this duty – a damaging concession to consequentialism.

Type
10th Anniversary Symposium
Information
Utilitas , Volume 10 , Issue 3 , November 1998 , pp. 261 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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References

1 Ross seconds this weakening of ‘right’. ‘It may sometimes happen that there is a set of two or more acts, one or other of which ought to be done by me rather than any act not belonging to the set. In such a case any act of this set is right, but none is my duty; my duty is to do “one or other” of them’ (p. 3). He acknowledges an element of stipulation in this finding.

2 For the expression ‘ethical neutralism’, as used of Moore, see Broad, C. D. in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, ed. Schilp, P., Evanston and Chicago, 1942, esp. pp. 43 and 51Google Scholar.

3 See Geach, P. T., Reference & Generality, Ithaca, 1968Google Scholar.

4 See his essay ‘Propositions’, repr. in his Philosophical Essays, Cambridge, Mass., 1987.

5 See ‘Which Physical Events are Mental Events’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, lxxxi (1980–1981)Google Scholar, her review of Davidson, , Ratio, xxiv (1982), 88fGoogle Scholar. and Simple Mindedness, Harvard, 1997, index, s.v. ‘actions’Google Scholar.

6 The supposed neutrality of these two duties is not exactly the same.

7 If the example just given does not carry conviction, apply the recipe again and find another one.

8 Cp. FE, p. 319. ‘If we are right in holding that the general nature of things that are obligatory is that they are activities of self-exertion, what can we say about their particular character? Perhaps the most widely current view on this question is that the special character of all acts that are right, and that which makes them right, is that they are acts of setting oneself to produce a maximum of what is good. This seems to me far from being, as it is often supposed to be, self-evident, and to be in fact a great oversimplification of the ground of rightness. There is no more reason, after all, to suppose that there is one single reason which makes all acts right that are right than there is for supposing (what I fancy no one who coiders the matter will suppose) that there is a single reason which makes all things good that are good. And in fact there are several branches of duty which apparently cannot be grounded on the productivity of the greatest good … for instance, of fulfilling promises.’

9 Ross writes ‘actions’, forgetting (as so often) the excellent preliminaries set out in chapter one of The Right and The Good, already here rehearsed, concerning acts and actions.

10 Or ‘for every non-tragic context in which a conflict of prima facie duties arises’, one might prefer Ross to say, though he doesn't.

11 To say that much, however, is not of course to deny that such a consideration will commit those who accept it to something universal. For on a proper understanding of the distinctness of generality and universality, the consideration could be utterly specific and still point towards something unqualifiedly universal. It is useful, here and everywhere, to make use of Hare's, R. M. distinction in Freedom and Reason, Oxford, 1963, ch. 3Google Scholar, between the general/specific distinction and the universal/particular distinction. See also Moral Thinking, Oxford, 1981, p. 41Google Scholar.

12 Cp. NE 1143b. NB. especially the ναπδεικτοι φσεις τν πρεσβτερων If you do not believe me when I say this on Ross's behalf, then you should take note of the fact that, typically, the premises of a practical syllogism that expresses ordinary practical insight into a given context are neither numerous nor long. A practical syllogism needs only premises that are adequate for its context. That is what makes the practical syllogism finite, manageable and serviceable. Why should it count against our claim to have practical knowledge if we are unable to rewrite the premises of our moral reasoning in a form that makes such reasoning self-sufficient and independent of context?

13 I formulate the schema in this way in order to respect the point that there may be true universal prohibitions. Note here that there is not a doing of the act of refraining from ϕ-ing (an action of refraining from ϕ-ing) wherever someone does not ϕ.

14 Cp. Scheffler, S.: ‘One thing they all share is a very simple and seductive idea: namely that … what people ought to do is to minimize evil and maximize good, to try in other words to make the world as good a place as possible.’ Consequentialism and its Critics, Oxford, 1988, p. 1Google Scholar.

15 Note however that the beneficent person is not as such readily identifiable with any Aristotelian stereotype.

16 The best remark I know about this comes (not at the beginning but towards the end, alas) in Foot, Philippa, ‘Action, Outcome and Morality’ in Morality & Objectivity: A Tribute to J. L. Mackie, ed. Honderich, T., London, 1985Google Scholar. My indebtedness to this article and its companion piece, ‘Utilitarianism and the Virtues’, Mind, xciv (1985) will be manifestGoogle Scholar.

17 This paper was written for an Oxford Seminar Series, entitled Eight Oxford Philosophers, organized in 1997 by Hacker, Peter and myselfGoogle Scholar. It was delivered in the presence of the editor of Utilitas, Roger Crisp, and I am indebted to him for comments to which I have responded by making some minor revisions. But I have not seen these revisions as in any way enlarging the modest aspirations of the piece. As Bernard Williams pointed out on the same occasion, any serious piece of historiography in this area would need to engage at the same time with the thought of H. A. Prichard.