The Duty of Children

Chase Miller

PHIL 251

Essay #3

MWF 1:25

The Duty of Children

Isabella Dutton is a mother who wished she never had her children. These are words one would not normally read together in a sentence, much less hear them spoken from someone's mouth. W.D. Ross argues that we have certain prima facie duties in his piece "What Makes Right Acts Right?" I will use these duties in this essay to provide evidence for and against the duty in question Ms. Dutton had to conceive a second child for her husband. Ross defines a prima facie duty as "a brief way of referencing to the characteristic which an act has, in virtue of being of a certain kind, of being an act which would be a duty proper if it were not at the same time of another kind which is morally significant" (Ross, p.129-130). Therefore, if a person has a prima facie duty to do "x," this means that the person has a moral reason which counts in favor of doing "x." Sometimes there may arise a situation where prima facie duties conflict, in which case an all things considered duty, or duty proper, would take over with the justification that the person doing "y" has a stronger moral implication than doing "x." Ross lists seven different kinds of prima facie duties, all of which will be applied one way or another to determine whether it was Ms. Dutton's actual duty to have had the second child she promised her husband. Mrs. Dutton, according to Ross, had available to her self-evident duties of fidelity, reparation, gratitude, beneficence, justice, non-maleficence, and self-improvement. In what follows, I will argue that the duties she had in favor of having her second child strongly outweigh those against not having any more children.

Ross asserts that the claims about the kinds of prima facie duties we have are all self-evident, but knowing your actual duty is not self-evident. For something to be self-evident, it must be so that when merely thinking about the facts of a statement, you realize it is true. For example, the statement "1+1=2" is self-evidently true; we can know that it's true simply by reflecting upon the concepts involved--we do not require further proof to know it's true. For a claim such as making a promise, it is self-evidently true because we know it would be false to suggest that it is meant to be broken when made. An actual duty would be the duty that should be performed in the particular situation. Therefore, although Ms. Dutton may have followed certain prima facie duties to her family, to guess as to her actual duty would have been a risk since there is the possibility of making a wrong decision: "Our judgments about our actual duty in concrete situations have none of the certainty that attaches to our recognition of the general principles of duty" (Ross, p. 133). One's prima facie duties are all general principles to be followed unless other moral considerations apply; for an actual duty, it is the morally obligatory thing to do, and if having guessed worse rather than better, can leave you with repercussions of unsound morality. Therefore to guess as to one's actual duty is hazardous because we are only able to make an educated guess as to what it may be.

Each duty has its own general implications, which I will describe for purposes of basic comprehension. The duty of fidelity is one that requires a person to be faithful or loyal, such as a promise. If a friend of yours breaks your television, s/he has a duty of reparation, meaning that s/he has a reason that counts in favor of making it up to you. Duties of gratitude are those that express thanks towards someone who has helped or benefitted you in one or multiple ways. To perform a duty of justice would be to give someone what he/she deserves, and nothing more or less. If you are to give someone a compliment, or provide first aid, that is considered a duty of beneficence, where you improve another's situation. We all have a duty of non-maleficence, which is not to cause physical harm to someone, or embarrass somebody, even when you have the power to do so. Lastly, a duty of self-improvement is to help/improve your own well being, such as exercising, going to class, or sleeping eight hours a night. Ross is an Intuitionist, which means he follows an objective ethical theory that supports situational relativism. Basically, what we ought to do will vary by situation, and determined by the facts of that situation...not by our own attitudes or opinions. Therefore none of these duties may take general precedence over another; they are completely dependent upon the context of the given situation. I will explain this in detail later on.

Ms. Dutton had a collection of prima facie duties that worked in favor of her having a second child. Firstly, a duty of fidelity applies to Ms. Dutton's promise to her husband. A duty of fidelity as afore mentioned is one of loyalty and faithfulness, in which case she has pledged to her husband a second child. If she didn't have a second child, she'd be breaking her promise, which would have violated her prima facie duty of fidelity. Already, then, her choice would have been prima facie wrong. Additionally, had she broken her promise, she should have realized that her husband would have been hurt emotionally. Because of this, she also had a prima facie duty of non-maleficence, counting in favor of having a second child. By doing so, it was a way to avoid hurting her husband because of the consequence of a broken promise. Ms. Dutton loves her husband, and is therefore grateful to him for what he does and how he makes Ms. Dutton feel. In this case, she has a duty of gratitude, to express her own gratitude towards her husband for bringing her happiness, or perhaps financial stability, a house, etc. One vehicle to execute this duty was having the second child that her husband wanted. To say that what Ms. Dutton owed to herself outweighed what she owed her husband would be a weak counter argument, since she never stated she thought she deserved not to have children for the sake of her own independence and happiness. She simply accepted that what she promised her husband was to be done, and no form of self-gratitude excused her from her promise. Ms. Dutton also reasonably may have possessed a duty of beneficence, where she would've theoretically been improving her husband's situation by granting him what he asked for, as well as providing e a companion for her son. No strong counter-argument could apply because she states, "I believe it is utterly selfish to have only one." She suggests that no benefit would have come upon either her husband or her son Stuart by not