ABSTRACT
When moral principles clash, some philosophers have said that there can only be one set of rights and obligations involved. A. I. Melden argues that by considering what is involved in giving special consideration to one's parents. Melden is quite aware that parental rights are not always satisfied, but he does not think, like W. D. Ross, that in face of this fact one must say that all parents have are presumptive or prima facie rights. Melden concludes that the recognition of moral rights does not entail that those rights ought always to be satisfied. Both Ross and Melden stress the practical nature of moral dilemmas. In doing so, they often treat moral problems as if they were technical problems. Melden's views can best be explained in terms of an analogy between moral principles and the rules of a game, an analogy which Melden probably derives from Ludwig Wittgenstein's use of the notion of a game in his Philosophical Investigations.
