A TALE OF TWO OBLIGATIONS

It was the best of acts, it was the worst of acts. Steve stopped to render first aid to Carl, who had had a car accident. But he thereby failed to keep his dinner date with Dave, who had badly wanted Steve to sample his latest culinary concoction. What a sorry business!

The story is a familiar one. W. D. Ross would say that Steve had a prima facie obligation (of beneficence) to tend to Carl and a conflicting prima facie obligation (of fidelity) to keep his date with Dave. Under the circumstances, Steve was quite justified in satisfying the former obligation at the expense of the latter; indeed, he was overall obligated to do so. The term “overall obligation” is not Ross's; he uses instead “absolute obligation, ” “actual obligation,” “duty proper,” and “duty sans phrase,” but none of these seems to me as felicitous as “overall obligation.” The term “prima facie obligation” is Ross's I don't think that it is particularly felicitous either (nor did Ross), but, as noted in Chapter 1, since Ross's term is by now so well entrenched, it seems on balance advisable to continue to use it.

The main question to be addressed in this chapter is simply this: how is the concept of prima facie obligation to be understood? This of course presupposes that there is indeed such a concept in the first place.