Toni Vogel Carey wrestles with conflicts of duty.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/137/When_Worlds_moral_and_causal_Collide
When Worlds (moral & causal) Collide
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Re: When Worlds (moral & causal) Collide
Prima Facie Duties: Seven, or just One?
In Issue #137, Toni Vogel Carey wrestled with conflicts of duty. In doing so, she highlighted the work of duty ethicist W. D. Ross. In this excellent article she describes duty ethicists as those who “look to the act itself, and ask whether it corresponds to an item on a list of moral rules (general prima facie duties).” She says “These are intuitive, and final; there is no higher tribunal.”
W. D. Ross's short list of prima facie duties are:
(1) Fidelity: promise-keeping, and the ‘implicit promise’ not to lie;
(2) Reparation for a previous wrongful act;
(3) Gratitude for previous services and kindnesses rendered by others;
(4) Justice, meaning “distribution of pleasure or happiness” in accordance with “the merit of the persons concerned;”
(5) Beneficence, resting on “the mere fact that there are other beings whose condition we can make better;”
(6) Self-improvement with regard to “virtue or intelligence;”
(7) Non-injury (or non-maleficence). That is, we should refrain from harming others either physically or psychologically. According to Ross, this duty is ‘prima facie more binding’ than its positive correlative, beneficence.
As I see it, #7, non-maleficence, or non-injury, is more binding than all the others; non-injury reigns supreme. So I think it would be wise to do as the Jains do: subscribe to #7, non-injury, as the supreme-ultimate-paramount-highest-duty. We must hold before us every minute of every day, this one single duty, asking ourselves in each instance: Does this harm any being or thing? And if there is a conflict: which action does the least harm?
The other items on the list will flow eudaimoniously from this single prima facie duty: non-injury. For one cannot be unjust without doing harm; one cannot break promises without doing harm, etc. Even reparations for previous wrongful acts are ways of repairing harms done, and, as such, remain subordinate to #7. As I study this little list, it is difficult for me to see how gratitude and self-improvement are duties at the same level as non-injury. Even beneficence, as a duty, is not at the same level as non-injury. An action may be beneficent, and that would be good and laudable, but it is far more important not to injure.
Perhaps, ultimately, non-injury is not only the supreme prima facie duty, but our only prima facie duty. The other six are inevitable concomitants of a mind totally committed to non-injury.
Such a parsimonious conception of our moral duties clarifies the mind and puts to rest a host of seeming conflicts. Of course we cannot live for long without injuring other beings and things, but we can ask in every instance how we can proceed with the least harm. Gandhi knew this, and it guided his entire life. Would that we could be as clear as he. Perhaps we could be, if we did as he did, if we set this single supreme duty so firmly in our minds that it guided our every thought, word, and deed.
In Issue #137, Toni Vogel Carey wrestled with conflicts of duty. In doing so, she highlighted the work of duty ethicist W. D. Ross. In this excellent article she describes duty ethicists as those who “look to the act itself, and ask whether it corresponds to an item on a list of moral rules (general prima facie duties).” She says “These are intuitive, and final; there is no higher tribunal.”
W. D. Ross's short list of prima facie duties are:
(1) Fidelity: promise-keeping, and the ‘implicit promise’ not to lie;
(2) Reparation for a previous wrongful act;
(3) Gratitude for previous services and kindnesses rendered by others;
(4) Justice, meaning “distribution of pleasure or happiness” in accordance with “the merit of the persons concerned;”
(5) Beneficence, resting on “the mere fact that there are other beings whose condition we can make better;”
(6) Self-improvement with regard to “virtue or intelligence;”
(7) Non-injury (or non-maleficence). That is, we should refrain from harming others either physically or psychologically. According to Ross, this duty is ‘prima facie more binding’ than its positive correlative, beneficence.
As I see it, #7, non-maleficence, or non-injury, is more binding than all the others; non-injury reigns supreme. So I think it would be wise to do as the Jains do: subscribe to #7, non-injury, as the supreme-ultimate-paramount-highest-duty. We must hold before us every minute of every day, this one single duty, asking ourselves in each instance: Does this harm any being or thing? And if there is a conflict: which action does the least harm?
The other items on the list will flow eudaimoniously from this single prima facie duty: non-injury. For one cannot be unjust without doing harm; one cannot break promises without doing harm, etc. Even reparations for previous wrongful acts are ways of repairing harms done, and, as such, remain subordinate to #7. As I study this little list, it is difficult for me to see how gratitude and self-improvement are duties at the same level as non-injury. Even beneficence, as a duty, is not at the same level as non-injury. An action may be beneficent, and that would be good and laudable, but it is far more important not to injure.
Perhaps, ultimately, non-injury is not only the supreme prima facie duty, but our only prima facie duty. The other six are inevitable concomitants of a mind totally committed to non-injury.
Such a parsimonious conception of our moral duties clarifies the mind and puts to rest a host of seeming conflicts. Of course we cannot live for long without injuring other beings and things, but we can ask in every instance how we can proceed with the least harm. Gandhi knew this, and it guided his entire life. Would that we could be as clear as he. Perhaps we could be, if we did as he did, if we set this single supreme duty so firmly in our minds that it guided our every thought, word, and deed.
Re: When Worlds (moral & causal) Collide
The negativity on non-injury bothers me. Would standing aside count as non-injury in the case of, say, someone in distress? Wouldn't it be simpler to follow Schopenhauer who held compassion to be a physiological attribute of humans and the root of his two virtues - justice and loving kindness? Or what about Do unto others as you would have them do to you?