Prima Facie (NHB Modern Plays)

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To see this, consider an act that would benefit me as well as someone else. A natural way to decide whether my act would be selfish is not to ask what I would do, but why I would do it. Plenty of non-selfish acts benefit the agent. What would make my act selfish is not the fact that it would benefit me, but whether I did it because it would benefit me, or because it would benefit the other person. So what makes this act selfish is not determined by what I did, but by why I did it. Suzie Miller's script is shrewd and economical in its analysis of how the system treats assault survivors... timely and timeless' Evening Standard

That some fact intensifies a reason provided by some other facts does not in principle prevent the intensifier from also providing a reason to do the same act. I am not aware of a principled reason for supposing that intensifiers cannot also be reasons. So one way of making Phillips' interpretation of Ross consistent with ER would be to suppose that the facts that figure in Ross's special obligations are both intensifiers and reasons. But this is not Phillips' view, and I think it would exaggerate the role that special obligations play. My view is, therefore, that this is a philosophically uncharitable reading of Ross. The response was so profound that I thought, 'Gosh, maybe if I write stories, I'll make more impact than just going to court every day.'" In the final chapter Phillips considers Ross's metaethics and epistemology. He broadly endorses the former, but is critical of the latter. The epistemology Ross inherited from Cook-Wilson and Prichard is, he argues, too dogmatic, and his claims about the special epistemic status of judgements of prima facie duty are indefensibly strong.

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The Latin phrase res ipsa loquitur means the object speaks for itself. The primary distinction between prima facie and res ipsa loquitur cases is that prima facie cases require numerous pieces of evidence to be valid and go to trial. The doctrine of res ipsa loquitur, on the other hand, states that the facts of the case are self-evident and do not require any supporting evidence to make them so. How do you establish a prima facie case? According to the prima facie standard of proof, a party must produce adequate evidence that a certain claim is true at the surface level. The subject is still being debated and even refuted. As a result, the prima facie standard of proof is low. What is an example of prima facie reasoning? If a person didn't intend to do a particular wrong act - it was an accident perhaps - then from a deontological point of view we might think that they hadn't done anything deserving of criticism. This seems to fit with ordinary thinking about ethical issues. Prima Facie by Suzie Miller is an award-winning play for a solo actor, taking us deep into a world where emotion and integrity are in conflict with the rules of the game. The system in Australia [at that time] was excluding many women from having access points to the mainstage … [Although] a lot of very political writers were actually on the outer as well, so it wasn't just women," she says.

But an unexpected event forces her to confront the patriarchal power of the law, where the burden of proof and morality diverge. In the play, after she is sexually assaulted, all Tessa wants to do is cuddle up next to her mum on her old floral sofa. While dividing her time between Sydney and London, Miller is also working on a number of feature films (including an adaptation of Prima Facie that will star English actress and singer Cynthia Erivo) and TV series. She also has a two-book contract with Pan Macmillan. This provides a basis for human rights - it forces due regard to be given to the interests of a single person even when those are at odds with the interests of a larger group. I don't remember what the play was, but I remember being blown away and going, 'I want to do that. That looks amazing.'"

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Phillips rejects the view that we should define moral obligation in terms of moral reasons (what he calls scalar deontology) in favour of a view according to which neither prima facie duty nor duty proper can be defined in terms of the other. (42) Ross neither was, nor ought to be a scalar deontologist, according to Phillips. How do we apply this to normative reasons? The place-holder for a motive in relation to normative reasons seems to be the reason-giving fact. But what fact would make the reason it grounds selfish? The fact that the act would benefit me is clearly a selfish fact in this context. But what about the fact that the act would benefit my family or my village? That might well benefit me as well as others (in my family or town). Does that make it both selfish and unselfish, or neither? In the General Electric Company of India Ltd. v. the Fifth Industrial Tribunal, West Bengal and Ors. (1990), it was stated that the phrase “prima facie” means at first sight or as far as it can be judged from the first disclosure. A prima facie case means that the evidence presented on the record would allow the plaintiff’s desired conclusion to be reached. A prima facie case has progressed through sufficient proof to the point where it would support a finding if contrary evidence is ignored. Philips argues that the difference between moral and non-moral reasons in Ross is to be understood in terms of their content (34). Moral reasons on this view are non-selfish reasons, and non-moral ones are selfish. But it is awkward to apply the concept of the selfish to normative reasons, rather than to acts and motivating reasons, where the notion is more at home. Furthermore, I understand the content of a reason as what the reason favours. If that is right, then the idea of a selfish normative reason cannot be understood with reference to its content.