Prima facie duties
Prima facie duties
A phrase used by W. D. Ross to indicate the nature of the general material rules of duty which he regarded as self-evident. Promise-keeping is a prima facie duty, one among others. I.e., if I have made a promise, I have a prima facie duty to keep it, which means that I will have an actual duty to keep it, if no higher prima facie duty is incumbent upon me. What Ross calls “prima facie duties” H. A. Prichard calls “claims” and E. F. Carntt “responsibilities.” The notion is central to the recent neo-intuitionism of Oxford, constituting its reply to the usual objection to intuited general material propositions about duty on the score that these may conflict and must admit of exceptions. — W.K.F.