Kant's Prima Facie Duties

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According to philosopher W.D. Ross, there are permanent and excellent, but not absolute reason to do something. This is known as prima facie duties. Ross has 7 duties that make up the prima facie duties: fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice, beneficence, self-improvement, and non-maleficence. The prima facie duties of fidelity, also know as “keeping promises”, and beneficence, known as “helping others”, are two of the most important when discussing promises. Kantianism is the philosophical ideas present by Immanuel Kant. Kant’s beliefs revolve around duty, rather than the emotions or end goal. Utilitarianism is a philosophical practice that actions should maximize the utility. In other words, utilitarians focus on the well-being on the …show more content…
Ross has a final duty, stating that what one ought to do in a particular case needs to take into account all the relevant prima facie duties. In regards to promises, Ross has the prima facie duty of fidelity, which is the duty to keeps one’s promise. While this means that one should always keep there promise, there is the small number of situations in which promises can be broken. For instance, if someone makes a promise to go see a movie with a friend, or do some other simple promise, then that promise should be fulfilled. However, in the case that on the way to meet with this friend, someone runs into a child that is lost and crying or a man having a cardiac arrest, the it is that person’s duty to stop and help that person. In this situation we are taking into account the prima facie duty of beneficence in which that person helped out another. However, when taking into account anything relevant of the 7 different duties, there can often be conflict between the two. Ross fails to provide what to do when two or more duties collide. In reality, there is no rule or step-by-step on how to handle a case like this. In the end, a person should take into account all the relevant duties present in Ross’s prima facie duties in order to follow moral

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