View source for W. D. Ross

{{Short description|Scottish philosopher and translator (1877–1971)}}
{{EngvarB|date=August 2014}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| region           = [[Western philosophy]]
| era              = [[20th-century philosophy]]
| honorific_prefix = Sir
| name             = W. D. Ross
| honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=GBR|KBE|FBA|size=100%}}
| image            = W-D-Ross.jpg
| caption          = 
| birth_name       = William David Ross
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|df=yes|1877|4|15}}
| birth_place      = [[Thurso]], Scotland
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1971|5|5|1877|4|15}}
| death_place      = [[Oxford]], England
| alma_mater       = [[University of Edinburgh]]<br>[[Balliol College, Oxford]]
| school_tradition = [[Analytic philosophy]]
| main_interests   = Ethics, [[Greek philosophy]]
| influences       = [[Aristotle]], [[Immanuel Kant]], [[G. E. Moore]], [[H. A. Prichard]]
| influenced       = [[Robert Audi]], [[Tom Beauchamp]],<ref>''Principles of Biomedical Ethics'' (1985), with [[James Childress|James F. Childress]], in which the authors acknowledge their debt towards Ross.</ref> [[Tara Smith (philosopher)|Tara Smith]], [[Bernard Gert]]
| notable_ideas    = [[Deontology|Deontological]] [[Ethical pluralism|pluralism]] ([[ethical non-naturalism]] / [[ethical intuitionism]] / [[ethical pluralism]]),<ref>[http://www.iep.utm.edu/ross-wd/ "William David Ross"] by David L. Simpson in the [[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]], 2012</ref> ''[[prima facie]]'' moral duties,<ref>[http://people.wku.edu/jan.garrett/ethics/rossethc.htm A Simple Ethical Theory Based on W. D. Ross]</ref> criticism of [[consequentialism]]
}}

'''Sir William David Ross''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|KBE|FBA}} (15 April 1877{{snd}}5 May 1971), known as '''David Ross''' but usually cited as '''W.&nbsp;D.&nbsp;Ross''', was a Scottish [[Aristotelianism|Aristotelian]] philosopher, translator, WWI veteran, civil servant, and university administrator. His best-known work is ''[[The Right and the Good]]'' (1930), in which he developed a [[Value pluralism|pluralist]], [[deontological]] form of [[Ethical intuitionism|intuitionist]] ethics in response to [[G. E. Moore]]'s consequentialist form of intuitionism. Ross also [[s:Author:William David Ross|critically edited and translated a number of Aristotle's works]], such as his 12-volume translation of [[Aristotle]] together with [[John Alexander Smith]], and wrote on other Greek philosophy.

==Life==
William David Ross was born in [[Thurso]], Caithness in the north of [[Scotland]] the son of John Ross (1835&ndash;1905).<ref>Grave of John Ross, Grange Cemetery</ref>

He spent most of his first six years as a child in southern [[India]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite ODNB |last=Warnock, G., & Wiggins, D. |title=Ross, Sir (William) David (1877–1971), philosopher |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-31629 |url-access=subscription |access-date=2022-04-12 |year=2004 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/31629|isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref> He was educated at the [[Royal High School, Edinburgh]], and the [[University of Edinburgh]]. In 1895, he gained a first class [[Master of Arts (Scotland)|MA]] honours degree in [[classics]]. He completed his studies at [[Balliol College, Oxford]], with a First in [[Classical Moderations]] in 1898 and a First in [[Literae humaniores|Literae Humaniores]] ('Greats', a combination of philosophy and ancient history) in 1900.<ref>Oxford University Calendar 1905'', Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1905, pp. 137, 182.</ref> He was made a Fellow of [[Merton College, Oxford|Merton College]] in 1900, a position he held until 1945;<ref name="MCreg">{{cite book|editor1-last=Levens|editor1-first=R.G.C.|title=Merton College Register 1900–1964|date=1964|publisher=Basil Blackwell|location=Oxford|page=18}}</ref> he was elected to a tutorial fellowship at [[Oriel College, Oxford|Oriel College]] in October 1902.<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=University intelligence|date=18 October 1902 |page=11 |issue=36902}}</ref>

With the outbreak of [[World War I]], Ross joined the army in 1915 with a commission on the special list.<ref name=":1" /> He held a series of positions involved with the supply of munitions.<ref name=":0" /> At the time of the [[Armistice of 11 November 1918|armistice]] he held the rank of major and was Deputy Assistant Secretary in the [[Minister of Munitions|Ministry of Munitions]].<ref name=":1" /> He was made an [[Officer of the Order of the British Empire]] in 1918 in recognition of his wartime service. For his post-war services to various public bodies he was made a [[Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire]] in 1938.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />

Ross was [[White's Professor of Moral Philosophy]] (1923–1928), [[Provost (education)|Provost]] of Oriel College, Oxford (1929–1947), [[Vice-Chancellor]] of the [[University of Oxford]] from 1941 to 1944 and [[Pro-Vice-Chancellor]] (1944–1947). He was president of the [[Aristotelian Society]] from 1939 to 1940. He was elected a Fellow of the [[British Academy]] and was its president from 1936 to 1940.<ref name=":1">[[George Clark (historian)|G. N. Clark]], [https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/1111/57p525.pdf 'Sir David Ross'], ''[[Proceedings of the British Academy]]'', 57 (1971), pp.&nbsp;525–543</ref> Of the many governmental committees on which he served one was the Civil Service Tribunal, of which he was chairman. One of his two colleagues was [[Leonard Woolf]], who thought that the whole system of fixing governmental remuneration should be on the same basis as the US model, dividing the civil service into a relatively small number of pay grades.<ref>''The Journey Not The Arrival Matters''. Leonard Woolf, 1969.</ref> Ross did not agree with this radical proposal. In 1947 he was appointed chairman of the first [[Royal Commission on the Press, United Kingdom]], elected an honorary fellow of [[Trinity College Dublin]],<ref name="rec">{{cite book |last=Webb |first=D.A. |editor-first=Barlett |editor-last=J.R.|date=1992 |title=Trinity College Dublin Record Volume 1991 |location=Dublin |publisher=Trinity College Dublin Press |isbn=1-871408-07-5|page=}}</ref> and elected an International Member of the [[American Philosophical Society]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=William+D.+Ross&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2023-03-16 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref> He was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1950.<ref>{{Cite web |title=William David Ross |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/william-david-ross |access-date=2023-03-16 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |date=10 February 2023 |language=en}}</ref>

[[File:The Ross family grave, Grange Cemetery.jpg|thumb|The Ross family grave, Grange Cemetery]]

He died in Oxford on 5 May 1971. He is memorialised on his parents' grave in the [[Grange Cemetery]] in [[Edinburgh]].

==Family==
His younger brother was minister Donald George Ross (1879&ndash;1943).

He married Edith Ogden in 1906 and they had four daughters, Margaret (who married [[Robin Harrison]]), Eleanor, Rosalind (who married [[John Miller Martin]]), and Katharine. Edith died in 1953.

He was a cousin of [[Berriedale Keith]].

==Ethical theory==
Ross was a [[moral realist]], a non-naturalist, and an [[Ethical intuitionism|intuitionist]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stratton-Lake |first=Philip |editor1-first=Philip |editor1-last=Stratton-Lake |url= |title=The right and the good |date=2002 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-153096-8 |location=Oxford |pages= |chapter=Introduction |doi=10.1093/0199252653.001.0001 |oclc=302367339 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0L_mCwAAQBAJ&pg=PR9}}</ref> He argued that there are moral truths. He wrote:

{{blockquote|The moral order&nbsp;... is just as much part of the fundamental nature of the universe (and&nbsp;... of any possible universe in which there are moral agents at all) as is the spatial or numerical structure expressed in the axioms of geometry or arithmetic.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=W. D. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/302367339 |title=The right and the good |date=2002 |publisher=Clarendon Press |others=Philip Stratton-Lake |isbn=978-0-19-153096-8 |location=Oxford |pages=29–30 |chapter=What Makes Right Acts Right? |doi=10.1093/0199252653.003.0002 |oclc=302367339 |quote=The moral order expressed in these propositions is just as much part of the fundamental nature of the universe (and, we may add, of any possible universe in which there were moral agents at all) as is the spatial or numerical structure expressed in the axioms of geometry or arithmetic. |chapter-url=https://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/readings/ross.pdf}}</ref>}}

Thus, according to Ross, the claim that something is good is true if that thing really is good. Ross also agreed with [[G. E. Moore|G.&nbsp;E.&nbsp;Moore's]] claim that any attempt to define ethical statements solely in terms of statements about the natural world commits the [[naturalistic fallacy]]. Furthermore, the terms ''right'' and ''good'' are "indefinable".<ref name="Skelton">{{cite web |last1=Skelton |first1=Anthony |title=William David Ross |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/william-david-ross/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=12 January 2021 |date=2012}}</ref> This means not only that they cannot be defined in terms of natural properties but also that it is not possible to define one in terms of the other.

Ross rejected Moore's [[consequentialist]] ethics. According to consequentialist theories, what people ought to do is determined only by whether their actions will bring about the best. By contrast, Ross argues that maximising the good is only one of several ''[[prima facie]]'' duties (prima facie obligations) which play a role in determining what a person ought to do in any given case.

===Duties===
In ''The Right and the Good,'' Ross lists seven ''prima facie'' duties, without claiming his list to be all-inclusive: fidelity; reparation; gratitude; justice; beneficence; non-maleficence; and self-improvement. In any given situation, any number of these prima facie duties may apply. In the case of ethical dilemmas, they may even contradict one another. Someone could have a prima facie duty of reparation, say, a duty to help people who helped you move house, move house themselves, and a prima facie duty of fidelity, such as taking one's children on a promised trip to the park, and these could conflict. Nonetheless, there can never be a true ethical dilemma, Ross argued, because one of the prima facie duties in a given situation is always the weightiest, and over-rules all the others. This is thus the ''absolute obligation'' or ''absolute duty'', the action that the person ought to perform.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ross|first1=William David|title=The Right and the Good|date=1930|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=London|page=21|edition=1946 reprint}}</ref>

It is frequently argued, however, that Ross should have used the term ''[[pro tanto]]'' rather than ''prima facie''. [[Shelly Kagan]], for example, wrote:

{{blockquote|It may be helpful to note explicitly that in distinguishing between pro tanto and prima facie reasons I depart from the unfortunate terminology proposed by Ross, which has invited confusion and misunderstanding. I take it that&nbsp;– despite his misleading label&nbsp;– it is actually pro tanto reasons that Ross has in mind in his discussion of what he calls prima facie duties.<ref name="Kagan-p17">Shelly Kagan, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=CwhREAAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 The Limits of Morality]'', (Oxford: [[Clarendon Press]], 1989) p.&nbsp;17n.</ref>}}

Explaining the difference between pro tanto and prima facie, Kagan wrote: "A ''pro tanto'' reason has genuine weight, but nonetheless may be outweighed by other considerations. Thus, calling a reason a pro tanto reason is to be distinguished from calling it a ''prima facie'' reason, which I take to involve an epistemological qualification: a prima facie reason ''appears'' to be a reason, but may actually not be a reason at all."<ref name="Kagan-p17" />

===Values and intuition===
According to Ross, self-evident intuition shows that there are four kinds of things that are intrinsically good: pleasure, knowledge, virtue and justice.<ref name="Simpson"/><ref name="Burgh">{{cite journal |last1=Burgh |first1=W. G. de |title=The Right and the Good. By W. D. Ross M.A., LL.D., Provost of Oriel College, Oxford. (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1930. pp.&nbsp;vi, 176.) |journal=Philosophy |date=1931 |volume=6 |issue=22 |pages=236–40 |doi=10.1017/S0031819100045265 |s2cid=170734138 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/WGDTRA|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Virtue refers to actions or dispositions to act from the appropriate motives, for example, from the desire to do one's duty.<ref name="Skelton"/> Justice, on the other hand, is about happiness in proportion to merit. As such, pleasure, knowledge and virtue all concern states of mind, in contrast to justice, which concerns a relation between two states of mind.<ref name="Skelton"/> These values come in degrees and are comparable with each other. Ross holds that virtue has the highest value while pleasure has the lowest value.<ref name="Burgh"/><ref name="Borchert">{{cite book |last1=Borchert |first1=Donald |title=Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd Edition |date=2006 |publisher=Macmillan |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopedia-of-philosophy_202009/Volume%208/page/504/mode/1up |chapter=Ross, William David}}</ref> He goes so far as to suggest that "''no'' amount of pleasure is equal to any amount of virtue, that in fact virtue belongs to a higher order of value".<ref name="Ross"/>{{rp|150}} Values can also be compared within each category, for example, well-grounded knowledge of general principle is more valuable than weakly grounded knowledge of isolated matters of fact.<ref name="Ross"/>{{rp|146–7}}<ref name="Skelton"/>

According to Ross's ''intuitionism'', we can know moral truths through intuition, for example, that it is wrong to lie or that knowledge is intrinsically good.<ref name="Skelton"/> Intuitions involve a direct apprehension that is not mediated by inferences or deductions: they are self-evident and therefore not in need of any additional proof.<ref name="Simpson">{{cite web |last1=Simpson |first1=David L. |title=William David Ross |url=https://iep.utm.edu/ross-wd/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=12 January 2021}}</ref> This ability is not inborn but has to be developed on the way to reaching mental maturity.<ref name="Ross">{{cite book |last1=Ross |first1=W. D. |title=The Right and the Good |date=2002 |orig-date=1930 |publisher=Clarendon Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/STRTRA-4}}</ref>{{rp|29}} But in its fully developed form, we can know moral truths just as well as we can know mathematical truths like the axioms of geometry or arithmetic.<ref name="Ross"/>{{rp|30}}<ref>{{cite book |last1=Craig |first1=Edward |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |date=1996 |publisher=Routledge |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BEAREO |chapter=Ross, William David}}</ref> This self-evident knowledge is limited to general principles: we can come to know the ''prima facie'' duties this way but not our ''absolute'' duty in a particular situation: what we should do all things considered.<ref name="Ross"/>{{rp|19–20,30}} All we can do is consult perception to determine which prima facie duty has the highest normative weight in this particular case, even though this usually does not amount to knowledge proper due to the complexity involved in most specific cases.<ref name="Skelton"/>

===Criticism and influence===
A frequent criticism of Ross's ethics is that it is unsystematic and often fails to provide clear-cut ethical answers. Another is that "moral intuitions" are not a reliable basis for ethics, because they are fallible, can vary widely from individual to individual, and are often rooted in our evolutionary past in ways that should make us suspicious of their capacity to track moral truth.<ref>For a discussion of these and other common criticisms of Ross's ethics, see Simpson, "William David Ross".</ref> Additionally there is no consideration of the consequence of the action undertaken, as with all deontological approaches.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Gaw|first=Allan|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/766246011|title=On moral grounds : lessons from the history of research ethics|date=2011|publisher=SA Press|others=Michael H. J. Burns|isbn=978-0-9563242-2-1|location=Glasgow|oclc=766246011}}</ref>

Ross's deontological pluralism was a true innovation and provided a plausible alternative to [[Kantian]] deontology.<ref name="Skelton"/> His ethical intuitionism found few followers among his contemporaries but has seen a revival by the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century. Among the philosophers influenced by ''The Right and the Good'' are Philip Stratton-Lake, [[Robert Audi]], [[Michael Huemer]], and [[C.&nbsp;D. Broad]].<ref name="Simpson"/>

==Selected works==
* 1908: [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html ''Nicomachean Ethics'']. Translated by W. D. Ross. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
* 1923: ''[[iarchive:in.ernet.dli.2015.536932|Aristotle]]''
* 1924: [http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/metaphysics.html ''Aristotle's Metaphysics'']
* 1927: [https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2377758.pdf 'The Basis of Objective Judgments in Ethics']. ''International Journal of Ethics'', 37:113–127.
* 1930: ''[[iarchive:rightgood0000ross|The Right and the Good]]''
* 1936: ''Aristotle's Physics''
* 1939: [https://archive.org/details/foundationsofeth029077mbp ''Foundations of Ethics'']
* 1949: ''Aristotle's Prior and Posterior Analytics''
* 1951: ''[[iarchive:platostheoryofid0000ross|Plato's Theory of Ideas]]''
* 1954: ''[[iarchive:kantsethicaltheo0000ross|Kant's Ethical Theory: A Commentary on the Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten]]'', Oxford: Oxford University Press.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* [[G. N. Clark]], [https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/documents/1111/57p525.pdf 'Sir David Ross'], ''[[Proceedings of the British Academy]]'', 57 (1971), pp.&nbsp;525–543
* [[David Phillips (philosopher)|Phillips, David]]. ''Rossian Ethics: W. D. Ross and Contemporary Moral Theory''. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
* [[Alan Stout (philosopher)|Stout, A. K]]. 1967. [https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ross-william-david-1877-1971 'Ross, William David']. In P. Edwards (ed.), ''The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy''. New York: Macmillan: 216–217.
* Stratton-Lake, Philip. 2002. 'Introduction'. In Ross, W. D. 1930. ''The Right and the Good''. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Timmons, Mark. 2003. [https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/moral-writings-and-the-right-and-the-good/ 'Moral Writings and The Right and the Good'.]  [Book Review] ''Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews''

==External links==
{{Wikisource|Author:William David Ross|William David Ross}}
*{{cite SEP |url-id=william-david-ross |title=William David Ross |last=Skelton |first=Anthony}}
*[http://www.iep.utm.edu/ross-wd/ "William David Ross"] by David L. Simpson in the [[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]], 2012
*[http://www.giffordlectures.org/Author.asp?AuthorID=146 ''William David Ross''] a biography and online lectures at the [[Gifford Lectures]] website
*Cooley, Ken. ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20051017102909/http://www.manitowoc.uwc.edu/staff/awhite/ken95.htm Sir David Ross's Pluralistic Theory of Duty (The Beginnings)]''

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{{succession box
| title=[[Oriel College, Oxford|Provost of Oriel College, Oxford]]
| years=1929–1947
| before=Lancelot Ridley Phelps
| after=George Clark 
}}
{{succession box
| title=[[Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University]]
| years=1941–1944
| before=[[George Stuart Gordon]]
| after=[[Richard Winn Livingstone]]
}}
{{s-end}}

{{Authority control}}
{{White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, Oxford}}
{{University of Oxford}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ross, W. D.}}
[[Category:1877 births]]
[[Category:1971 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Thurso]]
[[Category:People educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh]]
[[Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh]]
[[Category:British Army personnel of World War I]]
[[Category:Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Honorary Fellows of Trinity College Dublin]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire]]
[[Category:20th-century Scottish philosophers]]
[[Category:Moral realists]]
[[Category:British scholars of ancient Greek philosophy]]
[[Category:Aristotle scholars]]
[[Category:Vice-chancellors of the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:Pro-vice-chancellors of the University of Oxford]]
[[Category:Provosts of Oriel College, Oxford]]
[[Category:White's Professors of Moral Philosophy]]
[[Category:Presidents of the British Academy]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Aristotelian Society]]
[[Category:Greek–English translators]]
[[Category:20th-century British translators]]
[[Category:Fellows of the British Academy]]
[[Category:Fellows of Merton College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Presidents of the Classical Association]]
[[Category:International members of the American Philosophical Society]]