ABSTRACT
Let us consider in connection with some examples what Hare himself has to say about ‘conflicts of duties’.
A doctor believes both that he ought to be truthful with his patients when they wish him to be and that he ought to act in their best interests. A situation arises in which he cannot meet the first of these moral requirements without, he thinks, failing to meet the second. The doctor believes that telling a particular patient the truth about his condition would be contrary to that patient’s best interests; yet the patient has made it clear that he wants to know what the truth is.
