Moral Duties and Moral Rights | Moral Philosophy Through the Ages

MORAL DUTIES

From Moral Philosophy through the Ages (2nd edition), by James Fieser

CONTENTS

Introduction

Intuitionist Duty Theory

Pufendorf on Natural Law and Moral Duties

Duties to God, Oneself, and Others

Ross's Intuitionist Theory of Prima Facie Duties

Criticisms of Duty Theory

Kant's Criticism: We Have No Duties to God Because We Cannot Know God

Mill's Criticism: Duties to Oneself Reduce to Only Self-Respect and Self-Development

Sidgwick's Criticism: Commonsense Moral Intuitions are Imprecise

Williams's Criticism: Moral Obligation Should Not Be the Central Focus of Ethical Life

Lingering Issues with Duty Theory

Single-Rule and Multiple-Rule Duties

Conceptual Distinctions between Duties

References

Study Questions

INTRODUCTION

Homelessness is a problem in virtually every country worldwide, and likely has been that way since the invention of cities around 10,000 years ago. The most common causes for homelessness are poverty, lack of affordable housing, unemployment, mental health issues, and substance use. But a small minority of homeless people, about six percent, are that way by choice. They often cite a desire for freedom, a rejection of societal expectations, and some will admit that they are just plain lazy. During their days, they explore the urban environment, mingle with interesting people, and have new adventures. With access to public facilities and community support, they find ways to sustain themselves and embrace their minimalist lifestyle. We on the outside, however, may feel that what they're doing is wrong. Aside from freeloading off governments and charitable groups, they are neglecting a fundamental obligation they have to do something productive in their lives. What that may be is up to them, but they need to pick something and go with it. Using more technical vocabulary, philosophers would express this contention by saying that you have a moral duty to develop your talents.

There was a time when the content of most ethics books consisted of elaborate discussions of all the moral duties that we have, including the duty to develop one's talents. Along with these would be duties to avoid harming others, to tell the truth, to keep agreements, to be charitable, and dozens of more specialized ones. We call this approach duty theory: morality is founded upon self-evident obligations that we have.

INTUITIONIST DUTY THEORY

The philosopher most responsible for the direction that duty theory took in the seventeenth-century was German-born Samuel von Pufendorf (1632–1694). His basic position is that moral duties are dictates of natural law. In a previous chapter we looked in detail at the natural law theories of Hugo Grotius, and Pufendorf himself, which have important similarities. Their main points are these:

• Our knowledge of natural law is founded upon some aspect of human psychology, such as sociability or self-preservation.

• There is a single fundamental natural law which is that we should be sociable.

• All moral obligations are built upon this fundamental natural law to be sociable.

What we add here to natural law theory is an account of the moral duties that we derive from natural law.

Pufendorf on Natural Law and Moral Duties

The basic connection between moral duties and natural law is not unique to Pufendorf, and goes back as far as ancient Greek Stoicism. A famous Stoic motto is that we are all "citizens of the cosmos", which means that all humans are part of the same universal and rational order of the natural world, regardless of our local origins. For the Stoics, this means that there is an inherent rightness or "natural law" embedded in the rational structure of the universe. By living in accordance with natural law, we fulfill our moral duties and thereby achieve happiness. More simply, through human reason we grasp the rational laws of nature, and follow the moral duties they recommend. Roman philosopher Cicero (106–43 BCE) describes this Stoic connection between natural law and moral duty here:

The duty that stems from [the virtue of] rightness first directs us toward living in harmony with Nature and faithfully following her laws. If we let Nature be our guide, we will never go wrong. We will seek what is naturally clear-sighted and sharp (wisdom), what helps strengthen human relationships (justice), and what is strong and brave (fortitude). But the core of rightness lies in the aspect of virtue we're now discussing (temperance). We should only approve of actions, whether of the body or the mind, when they agree with Nature's laws. [Cicero, On Moral Duties, 1.100]

For Cicero, then, when we follow nature's laws, we will exercise our moral duty through the virtues of rightness, wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance.

While influenced by Stoicism, Pufendorf takes a radically different approach to natural law and the duties that flow from it. That is, all of our moral duties spring from our instinctive drive for survival. His account here was inspired by Thomas Hobbes's pessimistic view of the state of nature, where, before the creation of governments, human life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short" (Leviathan, 13). According to Pufendorf, like other animals, we humans value our individual selves more than anything else. We learn every manner of self-preservation that we can, and we will set aside all other human inclinations when our survival is at stake. Pufendorf paints a gloomy picture of the isolated person who tries to survive on their own:

He has nothing left but herbs and roots to pluck and the wild fruits to gather; to quench his thirst at the next spring, river or ditch; to shelter himself from the injuries of weather by creeping into some cave or covering himself with any sort of moss or grass; to pass away his tedious life in idleness; to jump at every noise, and be afraid at the sight of any other animal. In a word, he will ultimately perish either by hunger or cold or some wild beast. [The Duty of Man and Citizen, 1.3]

To keep from starving to death or being eaten by wild animals, we must band together with other people, spend years of our lives learning time-honored survival skills, and rely on others for protection from dangers that even the best of us cannot handle alone. In view of the importance of mutual cooperation, Pufendorf proposes this as the fundamental law of nature: "To the extent that we can, every person ought to preserve and promote society, that is, the welfare of mankind."

Pufendorf argues that we can have certainty of this fundamental principle of sociability in two ways. We might first try to rationally deduce it based on what we observe about human self-preservation, as Pufendorf does in the above. Alternatively, we all grasp this principle automatically through "the light of reason" alone as he calls it. Pufendorf himself does not give a precise definition of this light of reason, but his early editor does in a footnote to one of Pufendorf's books:

[it is a perception] by the most simple [awareness], the very Moment that it is propounded, and they understand it, though they would never have found it out themselves, nor can they apprehend the reasons so well as to deliver their thoughts distinctly about it. [The Law of Nature and of Nations, 2.3.13 note by Jean Barbeyrac]

What Pufendorf calls "the light of reason", duty theorists after him have called "intuition", which we may define as this:

• Moral intuition: a non-inferential awareness or grasp of fundamental moral truths or obligations, independent of reasoning or empirical evidence.

Intuition is such a prominent feature of duty theories after Pufendorf that, starting in the nineteenth-century, duty theory became known as simply "intuitionism".

Duties to God, Oneself, and Others

Pufendorf argues that our knowledge of the natural law of mutual cooperation involves three sets of duties: those to God, oneself, and others. We do not have a master list of all of these duties stamped into our minds, but we deduce them through a natural reasoning process. We'll look at each of these sets.

First, duties to God, for Pufendorf, are of two basic kinds: (1) the duty to know God and (2) the duty to obey God. Our duty to know God first means that we should know that he exists. During the Middle Ages, theologians offered a variety of proofs for God's existence, some based on the idea that God is the first cause of everything and others on the idea that God is the master designer of all the order that we see in the universe. Philosophers and theologians in Pufendorf's day refined these arguments, and Pufendorf himself offers five distinct proofs for God's existence. As for our duty to obey God, Pufendorf argues that this involves first honoring God with our internal thoughts and then expressing God's will in our external actions.

Duties to oneself are also of two basic kinds, based on the fact that we are composed of both a soul and a body. As far as our souls are concerned, we have a duty to develop our talents and learn a trade that will make us useful to human society. If we do not, then "we will become a useless burden to the earth, cumbersome to ourselves, and troublesome to others." This, then, is Pufendorf's reason for why I should not voluntarily become homeless. As far as our bodies are concerned, we should first keep ourselves healthy through proper nourishment and exercise, and avoid "gluttony, drunkenness, [and] the immoderate use of women". Not only do these excesses harm us, but they frequently disturb society. More important than staying healthy, though, is staying alive; that is, we should not kill ourselves. In some special situations, if it benefits society, we may engage in a demanding occupation that potentially will shorten our lives, such as hard labor or military service. However, as a rule, suicide is not permissible for reasons of infirmity, indignity, fear of pain, or bravery.

The final category of obligations is that of duties to others, and Pufendorf's discussion of these is longer and more detailed than the previous two categories. He first distinguishes between absolute and conditional duties to others. The absolute duties are common obligations that every person has, regardless of their situation. Our first absolute duty is that "one do no wrong to another" through physical harm or the destruction of another's property. Our second absolute duty is that "every man respect and treat another as naturally equal to himself." In practical terms, this means that we treat people justly, such as fairly compensating those we hire for their labor, and that we treat people equally when distributing wealth. The third and final absolute duty is that "every man ought to promote the good of another as far as conveniently he may." That is, we should actively try to benefit others, such as through acts of charity.

Our conditional duties to others arise from contracts that we make with people. Some of us are not inclined to perform good deeds simply from the goodness of our hearts. Instead, we will do good deeds only if we know exactly what we will receive in return. For this reason, we devise contracts with other people. The main duty surrounding contracts is that "every man keep his word, or fulfill his promises and make good his contracts." If we do not, then contracts are useless, and we lose out on the social benefits that we might otherwise obtain.

To summarize, these are the main points of Pufendorf's duty theory:

• Through either intuition or deduction, we grasp the fundamental principal of natural law, which mandates that we should be sociable.

• We fulfill this mandate of natural law through duties to God, self, and others.

• Duties to God include to know that God exists and conform our actions to his will.

• Duties to oneself include duties of the soul (develop one's talents) and duties of the body (stay healthy, do not kill oneself).

• Duties to others include absolute duties (do not harm, acknowledge equality, promote the good of others) and conditional duties (keep one's contracts).

Today we rarely find Pufendorf's name mentioned in textbooks on ethics. However, it would be difficult to exaggerate the influence that his theory of natural law and moral duties had on subsequent moral philosophers. Right until the early 1900s, almost every textbook on ethics had a substantial discussion of the duties we have to God, oneself and others, an approach that owes directly to him.

Ross's Intuitionist Theory of Prima Facie Duties

A major contemporary proponent of intuitionist duty theory was British philosopher William David Ross (1877–1971) in his book The Right and the Good (1930). Dissatisfied with the newer moral theories of his time, Ross proposed a list of intuitive duties that form the basis of our moral judgments. There are two key features of Ross's theory, the first of which is the list of duties itself. Unlike Pufendorf's duty theory who offers dozens of duties to God, oneself, and others, Ross pares the list down to seven types of duty:

• Duties of fidelity: Keep promises, tell the truth.

• Duties of reparation: Make good on previous harm done.

• Duties of gratitude: Show thanks for services done to us by others.

• Duties of justice: Distribute happiness in accord with a person's merit.

• Duties of beneficence: Help improve the lives of others.

• Duties of self-improvement: Develop virtue or intelligence.

• Duties of non-injury: Avoid actively harming others.

Ross's list of duties differs from earlier lists in several important respects. First, duties to God do not appear on the list; in fact, Ross does not discuss religious issues at all in his book. Second, although Ross includes a duty to oneself (self-improvement) he does not list the survival duty to not kill oneself. It seems, for Ross, that we can kill ourselves if we so choose, but we cannot voluntarily become homeless. The remaining duties on Ross's list are standard duties similar to others that we find on earlier lists. Like earlier duty theorists, Ross, too, believes that these duties are self-evident intuitions, which we naturally develop as we mature. And, like his predecessors, Ross suggests that we discover these duties by looking at "the moral convictions of thoughtful and well-educated people," and not by surveying the attitudes of ordinary folk.

The second key feature of Ross's theory is his distinction between one's prima facie duty and one's actual duty. This distinction arises from the occurrence of moral dilemmas, that is, situations in which, if we follow one moral duty, then we necessarily violate a different moral duty. Suppose, for example, that I borrow your gun and promise to return it when you ask for it. The next day you have a fight with your boss and ask me to return your gun. Should I give you back your gun? I am clearly torn between two duties: (1) the duty of fidelity, which requires me to keep my promise and return it to you, and (2) my duty of non-injury, which requires that I not participate in harming your boss. Cicero believed that conflicts such as this weaken both duties and make them less "perfect" than they would otherwise be. Ross, too, feels that all moral duties are somewhat diminished by possible conflicts with competing duties. For Ross, all duties are tentatively binding on us; that is, they are prima facie duties. The Latin term prima facie literally means "at first appearance" and implies that this is how something appears immediately. Even though these duties are immediately clear, they are still open for consideration in the face of moral dilemmas. If there is no moral dilemma, then the duty becomes my actual duty. However, if there is a moral dilemma, then only the stronger of the competing duties emerges as my actual duty.

According to Ross, there is no clear formula for determining which duty in a moral dilemma emerges as my actual duty. He suggests that we are guided once again by our intuitions. In the case of the borrowed gun, it seems intuitively obvious that my actual duty is to prevent injury to my neighbor's boss and my duty to keep promises essentially disappears. However, Ross argues that intuitions about our actual duties are not self-evident and are subject to error. For Ross, then, there are two distinct intuitive components to his theory: (1) a self-evident intuition that we tentatively have the seven prima facie duties listed above, and (2) an error-prone intuition about our actual duty in moral dilemmas.

CRITICISMS OF DUTY THEORY

In spite of the wide popularity of Pufendorf's intuitionist duty theory, over time critics both within and outside of that tradition chiseled away at its central components. We will look at three here, the second two of which also apply to Ross's theory.

Kant's Criticism: We Have No Duties to God Because We Cannot Know God

Pufendorf groups duties to God together with the moral duties that we have to humans, that is, to oneself and to others. But this seems strange since, assuming that God exists, God is an entirely different kind of being from you and me. German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) drew attention to this problem. Kant himself falls squarely within the intuitionist tradition of duty theory. From his earliest to his most mature writings on ethics, Kant argued that moral duties are divided between those to oneself and those to others. However, Kant was more suspicious about whether we have moral duties to God. He believed that we have any number of religious duties to God, but none that are genuinely moral. Kant's specific views on the subject appears to have evolved over the years. In an early set of lectures on ethics, he rejected the view that we have duties to higher spiritual beings such as angels or demons since we have no real knowledge of these beings. He writes, "Spirits may exist or they may not; all that is said of them may be true; but we know them not and can have no intercourse with them. This applies to good and to evil spirits alike" (Lectures on Ethics). In time, Kant used this same line of reasoning to argue directly against our having any duties to God:

As far as reason alone can judge, a human being has duties only to human beings (himself and others), since his duty to any subject is moral constraint by that subject's will. Hence the constraining (binding) subject must, first, be a person; and this person must, secondly, be given as an object of experience, since the human being is to strive for the end of this person's will and this can happen only in a relation to each other of two beings that exist (for a mere thought-entity [i.e., God] cannot be the cause of any result in terms of ends). [The Metaphysics of Morals, 442]

Kant himself did believe in God, and he argues that we all need to act as though God exists and is watching us. His point here, though, is that God exists in a realm that transcends the ordinary world of experience around us, and we cannot acquire knowledge of God in that transcendent realm. In fact, Kant says, it is nonsensical to even talk about knowledge of God. Since we have no experiential knowledge of God, then, we do not know if we have duties to him, let alone what they might be.

A century before Kant, Hobbes made a similar point about God's inaccessibility, and by looking at Hobbes's statement, we may better understand Kant's criticism. Hobbes considers the kinds of beings with which humans can make agreements or contracts. He writes that we cannot make agreements with God because we do not know whether God accepts the agreements that we devise:

To make covenant with God is impossible, but by mediation of such as God speaketh to (either by revelation supernatural or by his lieutenants that govern under him and in his name); for otherwise we know not whether our covenants be accepted or not. [Leviathan, 14.23]

According to Hobbes, communication with humans is two-way: I can speak directly to you, and you can speak directly back to me. However, except in rare cases when God communicates through revelation, communication with God is one-way: I can speak to God, but God does not directly speak back to me. According to Hobbes, agreements require two-way communication, such as when I offer to sell you my car and you agree to purchase it. I may try to make an agreement with God, such as "If God cures my cancer, then I promise to be a better person." But if I do not know whether God accepts my proposal, then we have not reached any genuine agreement. Kant similarly feels that we must have some access to God to determine whether we have duties toward him. For Kant, philosophy cannot give us such knowledge of God.

Religious mystics disagree with Kant and Hobbes about our ability to directly access God. For mystics, our life's goal should be to encounter God, realize our inherent connection with God, and thereby acquire immediate knowledge of God's nature. Similarly, rationalist theologians believe that we can rationally deduce knowledge of God's nature and thereby gain access to God. Hobbes holds open the possibility of accessing God through supernatural revelation, but this slight concession is not a realist option for either Hobbes or Kant.

So, whose position should we follow on this issue of moral duties to God: Kant's or the religious mystic's? The heart of the issue concerns the extent to which we may dispute the existence and nature of the person to whom we might owe a moral duty. We cannot dispute the existence of other humans and the moral demands they place on us. Clearly, then, we all have duties toward other humans. However, many people do dispute God's existence. It is not clear, then, that we have duties to God. To resolve the issue of duties to God, we need to strike a compromise. People who doubt knowledge of God should follow Kant, and people who assert knowledge of God should follow the mystic and allow for duties to God to the degree that their knowledge of God requires. In formulating this compromise, we are not so much granting permission to the religious believer, but rather simply acknowledging what many believers are already doing. That is, many believers feel duty-bound to God's expectations and will follow those moral duties, regardless of Kant's objection. Unless we are prepared to challenge the believer's claim to know God, we should recognize that the believer may accept special moral duties that stem from this knowledge.

Mill's Criticism: Duties to Oneself Reduce to Only Self-Respect and Self-Development

A 21-year-old man died in a dirt bike accident. Riding in a wooded area, he launched his bike off an embankment and collided in midair with another biker. A friend of the deceased biker commented that "he died exactly the way he wanted, doing what he loved." The friend's statement reflects a common attitude that society should not interfere in our private leisure activities, even if they put our lives at risk. Nineteenth-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) defended this view of personal freedom in his book On Liberty (1859). In a famous passage, Mill argues that society may rightfully constrain us only when our actions harm others, but not when they just harm ourselves:

That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. . . . The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. [On Liberty, 1]

According to Mill, when our actions do not affect others, we have absolute independence over what we do to both our bodies and minds.

Mill's principle of liberty, as we now call it, has implications for the traditional view of duties to oneself: they are not socially obligatory:

What are called duties to ourselves are not socially obligatory, unless circumstances render them at the same time duties to others. The term duty to oneself, when it means anything more than prudence, means self-respect or self-development; and for none of these is any one accountable to his fellow-creatures, because for none of them is it for the good of mankind that he be held accountable to them. [On Liberty, 4]

Mill argues here that duties to ourselves are not socially binding on us unless they spill over into the arena of duties to others. For example, Mill would argue that the dirt biker did nothing socially wrong by harming himself, although he did do something socially wrong to the degree that he harmed the other biker in the collision. But if the biker himself is the sole victim, the matter is different. Technically, Mill does not deny that we have duties purely to ourselves; he only argues that society cannot force us to abide by these duties. The person who disregards duties to themselves may displease or disgust us, and even cause us to pity them. Think of a town drunk who wallows in his own filth but is harmless to other people. In spite of our negative reaction to people like this, Mill believes that we would not be justified in punishing them.

For the sake of argument, let's grant Mill's social point that we do not want society to interfere in this arena of our personal lives and enforce duties to oneself. Lurking beneath the surface of Mill's social point, though, is an interesting ethical point, namely, that duties to oneself are relatively insignificant. Traditional duty theorists believed that duties to oneself were as urgent and inflexible as duties to others. Pufendorf, in particular, believed that duties to oneself rest on both religion and societal necessity and that we cannot willfully dispense with duties to ourselves:

The duties a person owes to himself arise jointly from religion and from the necessity of society. Thus, no person is completely lord of himself, but, instead, there are many things relating to himself which are not to be disposed altogether according to his will. This is partly because of the obligation he lies under for being a religious worshiper of the Deity, and partly so that he may keep himself a useful and beneficial member of society. [The Duty of Man and Citizen, 1.3]

Mill agrees that duties to others are indeed significant and relatively inflexible, insofar as they are firmly grounded in the greater good of humankind. The case is different, though, with duties to oneself. Why, asks Mill, are not duties to oneself socially obligatory? The answer he gives is that they are simply matters of "self-respect or self-development." And, for Mill, we define our personal notions of self-respect and self-development based on our individual conceptions of what is good, conceptions that are flexible. For example, the dirt biker may have been morally justified in his death-defying behavior if, based on his personal conception of goodness, he believed that his behavior was an expression of self-respect and self-development. Similarly, physician assisted suicide might also be morally permissible in view of that person's concept of self-respect. In short, insofar as duties to oneself hinge on self-respect, self-development, and individual good, they rest on matters of personal preference, and this is more flexible and less urgent than duties to others. Thus, duties to others are more like New Year's resolutions than they are like the genuine moral obligations we have towards others.

What should we think about Mill's criticism of duties to oneself? Mill is probably right that moral duties to oneself have a less urgent and more flexible foundation than duties to others. However, we still might find a common theme that underlies our duties to ourselves and to others, and also any possible duties to God. Our duties to others are informed by our knowledge of what other people demand of us. Our duties to God, if there are any, are informed by the extent to which we know what God demands of us. Using parallel reasoning, our duties to ourselves should be informed by what demands we make on ourselves. Those who choose to make special demands on themselves, then, have special duties to themselves. Those who choose not to make demands do not have those duties. If the harmless town drunk claims that he has no duties to himself, then I must accept him at his word unless I am prepared to show that he in fact makes special demands on himself. However, this would be difficult for me to show since the information that I need exists mainly in the mind of the town drunk, which I do not have direct access to.

Sidgwick's Criticism: Commonsense Moral Intuitions are Imprecise

We noted that perhaps the most distinctive feature of duty theory is its view that we have intuitive knowledge of our duties. In Methods of Ethics (1874), English philosopher Henry Sidgwick (1838–1900) criticizes this aspect of duty theory, contending that we cannot base our moral obligations on commonsense intuitions. Specifically, Sidgwick explains, there are two possible ways to discover our moral intuitions, and both of these have serious problems. According to the first way, simply survey the specific moral beliefs of ordinary people, which will supposedly reflect the underlying moral instincts within us. However, Sidgwick objects that the moral opinions of the ordinary person are "loose, shifting, and mutually contradictory." For example, the average person would think it wrong to take items from a grocery store without paying. But that same person might have no problem with taking home pencils that are the property of her employer or failing to report miscellaneous income on her income tax return. Sidgwick is probably right in his negative assessment about the ordinary person's moral views. However, no duty theorist would recommend that we discover our moral intuitions in such a crass manner. Rather than asking an average real person "How do you feel about stealing?" duty theorists suggest that we should instead consider how a hypothetical "reasonable" or "impartial human" would answer this question. This leads us to the second way of discovering our commonsense moral intuitions as noted by Sidgwick.

According to the second way, we should look beyond the specific attitudes of the ordinary person to find "clear and precise principles commanding universal acceptance." That is, we should search for universal moral principles that underlie common moral beliefs. But Sidgwick argues that, when we attempt to precisely define these principles, several problems emerge. Some principles that we arrive at may not be universally accepted. In other cases, "moral notions seem to resist all efforts to obtain from it a definite rule." In still other cases, the duty becomes so complicated that it is no longer self-evident. A rule against suicide would be a good example. Once we say that it is wrong to kill oneself, we then need to consider cases in which a person is dying of a painful disease, or has created a life-threatening situation through reckless behavior, or is about to be captured and tortured by an enemy, or goes on a suicide mission in military combat. The moral rules on suicide become so complex that they are no longer intuitively obvious. Sidgwick concludes with a fairly pessimistic statement of commonsense moral intuitions:

In each case what at first seemed like an intuition turns out to be either the mere expression of a vague impulse, needing regulation and limitation which it cannot itself supply . . . or a current opinion, the reasonableness of which has still to be shown by a reference to some other principle. [Methods of Ethics, 3.11]

Most duty theorists such as Pufendorf believed that our moral intuitions are fixed and universal since God implants them in us that way. However, Sidgwick's judgment about the looseness and inconsistency of moral intuitions seems more realistic, and most moral philosophers today agree with Sidgwick's assessment. For the sake of argument, let's accept Sidgwick's dismal portrayal of moral intuitions, and let's assume further that we cannot systematically make them any more fixed or universal. As inconsistent as they may be, it may still be premature to reject outright our commonsense intuitions as a guide for moral conduct. Philosophers such as Sidgwick are convinced that true morality requires consistency and universality. In fact, the usual way of attacking any proposed moral theory is to expose inconsistencies or to show that the theory cannot be universally applied. Perhaps there is a moral theory out there that can live up to this standard. Or perhaps not. In either case, we cannot put our actions on hold while we search for that perfect theory. In the meantime, we know for a fact that we have commonsense moral intuitions, despite their looseness and flexibility. It seems reasonable and even inevitable to use these intuitions as the default guide for moral conduct until something better comes along. We might, for example, merely rely on commonsense intuitions as our guide, but avoid generalizing our duties beyond our current circumstances.

Williams's Criticism: Moral Obligation Should Not Be the Central Focus of Ethical Life

In his book Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), Bernard Williams (1929-2003) argues that philosophical ethical theories grossly misrepresent our actual moral life. They treat "morality" as a narrow system built around obligation, and in doing so they ignore the wider range of concerns that actually shape how we live. He writes,

The important thing about morality is its spirit, its underlying aims, and the general picture of ethical life it implies. . . . Morality is not one determinate set of ethical thoughts. It embraces a range of ethical outlooks. [Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, p. 174]

Many theories, he argues, force the complexity of ethical life into rigid lists of obligations that do not match how people really think and act. He brands these offenders as "morality systems." He writes,

In the morality system, moral obligation is expressed in one especially important kind of deliberative conclusion—a conclusion that is directed toward what to do, governed by moral reasons, and concerned with a particular situation. [Ibid.]

That is, morality systems see moral obligation as rationally-grounded general rules that mandate a specific type of conduct.

This problem with morality systems especially applies to duty theory, which sees morality as a system of fixed obligations that supposedly define what we owe to others in any situation we face. For example, in our ordinary life, helping a neighbor carry groceries is not something we usually think of as a "duty." It's just a decent thing to do, and we do not blame people for skipping it. But a duty‑based theory would identify this as an obligation, particularly a duty to promote the welfare of others, or, in Ross's terms, a duty of beneficence. Williams calls these obligations of duty thin, indicating that they are abstract, stripped‑down labels like the terms "right", "wrong", or "ought". They tell us very little about the situation itself. In contrast, our actual moral experiences are thick insofar as they involve distinct qualities, such as kindness, cruelty, loyalty, or generosity. These have both descriptive detail, since we instantly know what it means to be kind, or cruel, or loyal or generous. These are where much of our real ethical understanding lies, not in thin notions like 'duty' or 'rightness' that tell us almost nothing about the situation.

Williams targets Ross in particular, and his prima facie duties of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, justice and beneficence. These are thin, abstract labels that tell us almost nothing about the real situations in which these concerns arise. Take gratitude, for example. Ross treats it as a general duty "to return services," but, Williams would say that this misdescribes what is really going on. Gratitude is often a matter of affection within a personal relationship with others, not a rule‑like obligation that applies the same way in every case. As Williams states it, "Ross is trying to force into the mold of obligation" ethical ideas that are not obligations at all. Ross's account of gratitude, then, is "thin" since it treats gratitude as a simple, general duty that applies the same way in every case. By contrast, our actual or "thick" moral experience sees gratitude as a response shaped by the history of a relationship.

While Williams does not mention Pufendorf's theory, his critique applies to him as well as Ross. Both thinkers treat morality as a set of fixed, general duties that supposedly capture the whole of ethical life. This is especially evident with Pufendorf's principal division of duties between those to God, oneself, and others. For, in Williams's terms, this three‑part structure already treats the whole of ethical life as something that can be cleanly sorted into abstract categories of obligation. This assumes that every ethical concern must fit somewhere within this duty‑scheme. There are fixed boundaries to our duties to worship God, develop our individual talents, and not harm others. Thus, Williams would argue that duty‑based moral theories mistakenly treat obligation as the central and dominant ethical concept. As such, they fail to recognize that true moral obligations arise from the varied and often messy situations in which people actually find themselves.

Is Williams right that duty theory is entirely misdirected? To give credit where credit is due, Williams is correct that in real-world situations moral obligations involve very specific situations and actions, such as helping my particular neighbor carry in their groceries. In theory, if we could list every genuine moral obligation of every human on this planet, it would be a list of very specific situations. After all, morality is about how we act, and all of our actions are located within a specific point in space and time. However, that is only part of the story, and the tail end of it at that. As humans, we form habits, look to others as models of how to deal with moral problems, and we are by nature rule-followers. From a purely evolutionary perspective, it is inefficient for humans to waste mental resources on sorting out the "thick" context of every morally relevant situation we face in the course of a day. We need quick answers, and this is precisely what moral habits and rules give us. Thin moral theories, which apply duty and obligation in a uniform way, are efficient and precisely what we need. This is why we distinguish between "moral obligations" (i.e., general moral rules) and moral conduct (i.e., moral actions within a particular context). Williams emphasizes the latter, while duty theorists emphasize the former, and do so for good reason.

LINGERING ISSUES WITH DUTY THEORY

The major lesson that we learn from the above criticisms of duty theory is that what counts as a "moral duty" is a moving target based on social context. Maybe it includes duties to God if you are a believer, maybe it doesn't if you are not. Maybe it includes duties to oneself if you think survival and personal development are urgent, maybe it doesn't if you don't. Williams's criticism is most telling. For him, what matters most about moral obligation is the moral situation we actually find ourselves in. Even if there are general moral rules of obligation, they must be able to speak to our actual concerns. If not, they functionally cease to be rules of obligation, and we must identify other rules that do speak to our situation. For example, the moral duty that we must always honor the sabbath by refraining from work is now a functionally dead one. Further, we might need to create a new moral duty to protect people's digital privacy to address this newer situation. We thus need to clean up duty theory to make it relevant. Our actual moral practice does this already without seeking permission from philosophers. Functionally dead duties die simply from neglect, and new ones are invented as needed. It is the philosophers that need to routinely clean up the list of duties.

Single-Rule and Multiple-Rule Duties

One step towards this cleanup task is to first examine how duties are categorized. An obvious one is a distinction between single-rule duties and multiple-rule duties. The Golden Rule is the most famous example of the former, and if there is a single moral duty that represents the ethical theory of humanity, it is probably this. We find it in all cultures since ancient times, and here is just a sample of how it has been expressed:

• "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." (Christianity, Matthew 7:12).

• "The sage has no interest of his own, but takes the interests of the people as his own." (Daoism, Daodejing 49).

• "Do not do to others whatever is injurious to yourself." (Zoroastrianism, Shayast-na-Shayast 13.29).

• "One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one's own self." (Hinduism, Brihaspati, Mahabharata 13.114.8).

• "What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others." (Confucianism, Analects, 15:24).

Its value is that it presumably reveals our obligations in every conceivable circumstance. I should not scam others since I would not want others to scam me. I should not assault others since I would not want others to assault me. It is not fool proof since, for example, if I am a masochist and like pain, the Golden Rule permits me to inflict pain on others. Nevertheless, the Golden Rule remains valid and is not going away any time soon. Philosophers have offered their own single-rule duty and, again, here is just a sample:

• "Follow nature" (Epictetus, Discourses).

• "Love, and do what you will" (Augustine, Homilies on the First Epistle of John).

• "Act only on that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law" (Immanual Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals).

• "Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness" (John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism).

• "Live so that you may desire to live again, that is your duty, for in any case you will live again!" (Friedrich Nietzsche, "Notes on the Eternal Recurrence").

Some of these are recognizable, and those that aren't have failed the test of time.

As to multiple-rule duties, the Ten Commandments is the most enduring example of this, particularly commandments 5-10 which are the non-religious ones:

(5) Honor thy father and thy mother. (6) Thou shalt not kill. (7) Thou shalt not commit adultery. (8) Thou shalt not steal. (9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. (10) Thou shalt not covet . . . anything that is thy neighbor's. (Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5).

Today, this is more commonly condensed to the big three: Don't kill, don't steal, don't lie. Pufendorf and Ross aimed to give their own list of multiple-rule duties that resonated in their own day. We've seen the strengths and weaknesses of their respective lists.

Suppose we wished to devise a list of duties that would be relevant to our concerns today, which would build on the big three of don't kill, don't steal, don't lie. What would be some contenders?

• Don't exploit the vulnerable.

• Do not abuse positions of authority.

• Do not discriminate unjustly.

• Preserve the natural environment for future generations.

• Do not neglect your own well-being.

• Be accountable to something greater than yourself.

The first four would fall under duties to others, whereas "Do not neglect your own well-being" would be a duty to oneself, and "Be accountable to something greater than yourself" would be a broader duty to God that might resonate with secularists as well. None of these are likely to make their way into a master list of duties in an ethics book. But they reflect the kinds of moral expectations that govern much of contemporary life behind the scene.

Conceptual Distinctions between Duties

The issue of single-rule and multiple-rule duties is one that is determined in the public arena. Philosophers and anyone else can propose what they like, but their use or disuse entirely determines their fate. Where philosophers have more say in the matter is with conceptual distinctions between duties irrespective of their content. We will look at four. First, is a distinction that Pufendorf himself drew, between specific vs. general duties. Specific duties apply to particular relationships or roles, such as a parent's duty to care for their specific child. General duties apply universally to all people, such as the duty not to harm others. The distinction between specific and general duties is useful because it often helps set off some specific obligations as either more or less important than general duties. For example, my specific duty to financially care for my family might override my general duty to financially assist a stranger in need. Alternatively, my general duty to help someone in immediate need might override my specific duty to attend my cycling group. The urgency comes down to the comparative strength of the specialized duty, with family duties ranking high and hobbies low.

Second is a distinction between perfect vs. imperfect duties which Pufendorf also drew. Perfect duties are moral obligations that must always be followed without exception. They are strict and specific, like the duty not to lie or the duty to keep promises. Imperfect duties are moral obligations that allow for flexibility in how and when they are fulfilled. They are often more general, such as the duty to help others or to develop one's talents, which do not need to be done at every opportunity. The distinction between perfect and imperfect duties is useful because it helps determine which aspects of the fulfillment of a duty are a matter of choice. For example, a parent might say to their adult child still living at home, "get off the couch and get a job; I don't care what you do, just get one". Also, a city might urge its residents to volunteer in the community; how, when, and where they do so is left entirely to their discretion.

Third is the distinction we've already seen with Ross's view of absolute vs. prima facie duties. Again, absolute duties are moral obligations that must be followed without exception, whereas prima facie duties, as we have seen with Ross, are duties that are binding unless they conflict with a stronger duty, in which case they can be overridden. This today is a common way of helping resolve moral dilemmas, such as choosing to lie to a child about a medical prognosis to avoid frightening them. Another example would be choosing to violate a strict workplace confidentiality rule in the interest of preventing harm to people from a safety violation.

A fourth distinction is between direct and indirect duties. Direct duties are obligations that I owe to a person who has an immediate claim against me, for example, my duty not to lie to you. Indirect duties arise when my treatment of something that has no moral standing nonetheless affects someone. Suppose that I remove a roadside memorial that was illegally placed on public land to mark the site of a fatal accident. The memorial itself has no rights, and no one has a direct claim against me as its owner. Still, I have wronged the grieving family whose loss the memorial represents. My duty is indirect: it concerns how my treatment of the object impacts the people connected to it. This distinction between perfect and imperfect duties is particularly useful today when addressing environmental issues. Examples are plentiful, such as: (a) damaging a coral reef, which has no moral standing itself but harms the communities that depend on it; (b) littering in a public park, which diminishes the experience for everyone who uses it; (c) destroying a historic tree, which affects the community that regards it as part of its identity. In all of these cases, the direct target of the action has no moral standing, but there is real indirect impact on people.

On the whole, in our normal lives, we in fact rely upon ever-evolving concepts of duty. We also rely upon important distinctions between types of duties when making tough calls about our obligations, whether we know the philosophical names of those distinctions or not. The philosopher's task is to give names to those distinctions and put them on record, for when we might want or need a more official analysis of a moral problem. There are also other important tasks for the philosopher of duty theory. Emerging duties often appear before we fully understand their implications. Duties involving digital life, artificial intelligence, or environmental responsibility arise faster than our conceptual tools can assess them. Duty theory must therefore remain flexible enough to accommodate obligations whose impacts are not yet clear. That is, as new social concerns arise, we may be tempted to label every important value a "duty," stretching the concept so broadly that it loses its ethical force. A cleaned‑up duty theory must not only add new duties but also resist the impulse to turn every new social ideal into an obligation.

REFERENCES

Cicero. On Moral Duties (De Officii). 1.100. Various editions.

Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan (1651). Various editions.

Kant, Immanuel. Lectures on Ethics, "Duties towards Inanimate Objects." (cf. 1780), translated by Louis Infield (London: Methuen, 1930).

Pufendorf, Samuel von. Dejure Naturae et Gentium (1762), translated as Of the Law of Nature and Nations (1729) notes by Jean Barbeyrac.

Pufendorf, Samuel von. The Whole Duty of Man according to the Law of Nature (London: Charles Harper, 1691), a seventeenth-century English translation of his book De officio hominis et civis juxta legem naturalem (1673).

Ross, William David. Chapter 2, "What Makes Right Acts Right," in The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930).

Sidgwick, Henry. The Methods of Ethics (1874); the quotation is from the seventh edition of 1904. Book 3, Chapter 11.

Tribune Democrat, Johnstown Pennsylvania, story of the young man on the dirt bike, July 1999.

Williams, Bernard. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Harvard University Press, 1985.

STUDY QUESTIONS

Please answer all of the following questions:

1. According to Pufendorf, what is the connection between natural law and moral duties?

2. According to Pufendorf, what happens when we try to survive on our own?

3. What are our duties to God?

4. What are our absolute duties to others?

5. Explain the intuitionist aspect of moral duties.

6. What are Ross's seven prima facie duties?

7. According to Ross, what is the difference between a prima facie duty and an actual duty?

8. What are the two intuitive aspects of Ross's theory?

9. What is Kant's criticism of duty theory?

10. What is the response to Kant's criticism given in the chapter?

11. What is Mill's criticism of duty theory?

12. What is the response to Mill's criticism given in the chapter?

13. What is Sidgwick's criticism of duty theory?

14. What is the response to Sidgwick's criticism given in the chapter?

15. What is Williams's criticism of duty theory?

16. What is the response to Williams's criticism given in the chapter?

17. Give an example of a single-rule duty theory.

18. Give an example of a multiple-rule duty theory.

19. What is the distinction between perfect vs. imperfect duties?

20. What is the distinction between direct and indirect duties?

21. Short essay: pick any one of the following views in this chapter and criticize it in a minimum of 100 words. Pufendorf: moral intuition, duties to God, or oneself, or others; Ross: seven duties, prima facie duty vs. actual duty; one of the responses to Kant, Mill, Sidgwick, or Williams; one of the four conceptual distinctions between duties.