Conflicting duties › Avoiding harm

Ross separates non-maleficence, the duty against injuring others, from beneficence. Avoiding an injury and conferring a benefit have different places in moral assessment. He also regards the duty not to harm as generally more stringent than the duty to benefit.

The qualification matters. "Generally more stringent" does not mean that every possible harm must be avoided whatever the circumstances. It identifies a moral priority that still needs judgment in application. Treating non-maleficence as an exceptionless prohibition would erase the distinction between prima facie duty and duty proper.

Consider whether to impose a serious, unconsented cost on one person to provide a small convenience for another. A description that mentions only the convenience omits the claim of the person bearing the cost. Ross's separation gives that claim an explicit place.

This is a conceptual illustration. It does not establish a policy for an actual clinical or legal case. Such a policy would require facts about the available options, the people affected, and the nature of the harms and benefits. Ross's framework identifies kinds of moral relevance; it does not supply missing empirical evidence or eliminate uncertainty about what will happen.