List of basic duties or obligations (‘‘prima facie’’ or ‘‘conditional’’)(W. D.

Ross)

Duties that have conditions that can lead to exceptions. Ross intended to convey the idea that
although these duties are generally obligatory, they can be overridden in special circumstances.
He disclaimed finality for his list, but he believed that it was reasonably complete. His list of
prima facie duties can be summarized as follows:

R1. Duties resting on our previous acts

(a) Duties of fidelity (to keep promises and not to tell lies)

(b) Duties of reparation for wrong done

R2. Duties of gratitude (e.g., to parents and benefactors)

R3. Duties of justice (e.g., to support happiness in proportion to merit)

R4. Duties of beneficence (to improve the condition of others)

R5. Duties of self-improvement

R6. Duties not to injure others

Utilitarian Ethics

The Utilitarian ethics was proposed by John Stuart. According to this theory, the happiness or
pleasure of a greatest number of people in the society is considered as the greatest good.
According to this philosophy, an action is morally right if its consequences lead to happiness of
people and wrong if they lead to their unhappiness. Like What’s best, in general, for everyone?

An example of this can be the removal of reservation system in education and government jobs,
which can really benefit the talented. But this can have an impact on the rights of the minorities.

Basic Insights of Utilitarianism

To make the world a better place

We should do whatever will bring the most benefit to all of humanity
Consequently, the emphasis in utilitarianism is on consequences, not on intentions
Is a demanding moral position that often asks us to put aside self-interest for the sake of
the whole.
Can be criticized for its view that “the ends justify the means”.

There are three main types of Utilitarianism. They are –

Cost–Benefit Approach

How are we to determine what counts as the greater good? One approach that has some
appeal from an engineering perspective is cost–benefit analysis: The course of action that
produces the greatest benefit relative to cost is the one that should be chosen. Sometimes this
is a relatively straightforward matter. However, making this sort of determination can present
several difficulties. We consider three here.

First, in order to know what we should do from the utilitarian perspective, we must
know which course of action will produce the most good in both the short and the long
term.
Second, the utilitarian aim is to make choices that promise to bring about the greatest
amount of good. We refer to the population over which the good is maximized as the
audience.
A third difficulty with the utilitarian standard is that it seems sometimes to favor the
greater aggregate good at the expense of a vulnerable minority.
Cost–benefit analysis involves three steps:

1. Assess the available options.

2. Assess the costs (measured in monetary terms) and the benefits (also measured in monetary
terms) of each option. The costs and benefits must be assessed for the entire audience of the
action, or all those affected by the decision.

3. Make the decision that is likely to result in the greatest benefit relative to cost; that is, the
course of action chosen must not be one for which the cost of implementing the option could
produce greater benefit if spent on another option.

Act Utilitarianism

The Act Utilitarianism focuses on each situation and the alternative actions possible in the
situation. Act Utilitarianism states that “A particular action is right if it is likely to produce the
higher level of good for the most people in a given situation, compared to alternative choices
that might be made.”

In accordance with this theory, the good done is only considered but not the way how it is done.
For example, looting the richer to feed the poor, can satisfy and make a group of poor people,
happy. But looting is not a way of morality. Hence act-utilitarianism seems to justify the wrong-
doing.

If we take the act utilitarian approach of focusing our attention on the consequences of
particular actions, we can ask, ‘‘Will this course of action result in more good than any
alternative course of action that is available?’’ To answer this question, the following procedure
is useful:

1. Identify the available options in this situation.

2. Determine the appropriate audience for the options, keeping in mind the problems in
determining the audience.

3. Bear in mind that whatever option is selected, it sets an example for others, and anyone else
in relevantly similar circumstances would be justified in making a similar selection.

4. Decide which available option is likely to bring about the greatest good for the appropriate
audience, taking into account harms as well as benefits.

Examples:

This act utilitarian approach is often helpful in analyzing options in situations that call for
making moral decisions. For example, assuming the economic costs are roughly equal, the
choice between two safety devices in an automotive design could be decided by determining
which is more likely to reduce the most injuries and fatalities. Also, road improvements might
be decided on the basis of the greater number of people served. Of course, in either case,
matters could be complicated by considerations of fairness to those who are not benefited by
the improvements or might be put at even greater risk. Nevertheless, the utilitarian
determinations seem to carry considerable moral weight even if, in some particular cases, they
turn out not to be decisive. How much weight these determinations should be given cannot be
decided without first making careful utilitarian calculations.