What makes one an philosopher great?
The known the fact that they are able to get people to listen, think and favor
that they can be an idealist who may make a difference. Sir W.D. Ross is moral
realist who also favored non-naturalist. “Non-naturalism is the view of the world that takes account only natural elements and
forces, excluding
the supernatural
or spiritual.” According to W.D.
Ross our ethical intuition gives you noble information about morality in the
same way your senses give me noble information about the world. The comparison
is like justifying things that we know are wrong to the same fact of knowing
that steam coming from a cup of coffee is going to be hot. So if we already
know through moral intuition what is right; then what is the real point of ethics?
Ross felt ethics does not show us what we should do because our intuitions
automatically do this for us. What he argues is disproving others ethical
reason instead of proving his own. Ross
felt you should go with the inner voice of reason telling yourself to go in
the direction with what your heart tells you. A
way to some this up is “the best offense is a good defense,” he would take
other philosophers theories of moral ethics and turn his philosophical fist
towards something he considered prima facie duties stated in Latin; which means
potential duties in English. A subject he argues against is utilitarianism to where
they believes what makes an action right is that the consequences turn out for the
best or maybe the right action is that which produces the greatest good in people.
They believe in optimistic which describes the right actions can produce the
greatest good. Ross disagrees with them. One of his most famous books is the Right and the Good which
can explain these duties.
Some of these duties are listed
below.
- Duty of fidelity– The duty to keep our promises.
- Duty of reparation– The duty to try to pay for the harm we do to others.
- Duty of gratitude– The duty to return favors and services given to us by others.
- Duty of beneficence– The duty to maximize the good (things of intrinsic value).
- Duty of no injury– The duty to refuse to harm others.
It is not our ethical theories but
rather our ethical intuition that are ultimate the bottom line Ross would be willing
to change his ideas of ethics if the facts change if the theory doesn’t continue
to sit right with us. Sitting right shouldn’t be what the theory of ethics
should be all about because if ethics is the science of living well then we had
be better to live with what it says.
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