People


W. D. Ross 1877–1971 England 

Intutitionist theory. Ethics as intuitions.

 Ross accepted G. E. Moore's argument that any equation of intrinsic good with a natural property commits the 'naturalistic fallacy'. However, Ross argues that Moore committed a similar fallacy in equating the rightness of an action with its maximization of good. That we ought always to maximize good is a synthetic and, in fact, false proposition. We have a number of distinct prima-facie obligations, of which this is only one and not always the most stringent. An act may be prima facie obligatory for a number of different reasons, and is absolutely right if the prima-facie obligation to do it is the weightiest. His attack on consequentialism and notion of a prima-facie moral obligation has had an enduring influence. OCP

 

Encyclopedia Entries

Duties and Deontological Ethics Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Ross,  William David  Oxford Companion to Philosophy 


Questions of 


Reading

 


Writing available on the net

Also

The Right and the Good (1930)

Foundations of Ethics (Oxford, 2000)


Commentaries

Ethical Intuitionism     THE JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY

 


Quotations