The Right and the Good has been praised as one of the most important works of ethical theory in the twentieth century.

[4] Ross uses these considerations to point out the flaws in other ethical theories, for example, in G. E. Moore's ideal utilitarianism or in Immanuel Kant's deontology.

[1][4] Ross, like Immanuel Kant, is a deontologist: he holds that rightness depends on adherence to duties, not on consequences.

[1] But against Kant's monism, which bases ethics in only one foundational principle, the categorical imperative, Ross contends that there is a plurality of prima facie duties determining what is right.

Absolute duty, on the other hand, is particular to one specific situation, taking everything into account, and has to be judged on a case-by-case basis.

[2][4] Various considerations are involved in such judgments, e.g. concerning which prima facie duties would be upheld or violated and how important they are in the given case.

[3]: 67–8 [6] According to Ross, self-evident intuition shows that there are four kinds of things that are intrinsically good: pleasure, knowledge, virtue and justice.

[3]: 146–7 [2] 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.

[2] 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.

[3]: 19 [1] Another fault of utilitarianism is that it disregards the personal character of duties, for example, due to fidelity and gratitude.

[3]: 22  Ross argues that his deontological pluralism does a better job at capturing common-sense morality since it avoids these problems.

[4] Ross's intuitionism relies on our intuitions about what is right and what has intrinsic value as the source of moral knowledge.

[1][8] Utilitarians have defended their position against the accusations of being overly simplistic and out of touch with common-sense morality by pointing to flaws in Ross's arguments.

As Shelly Kagan has pointed out, this term is unfortunate since it implies a mere appearance as, for example, when someone is under the illusion of having a certain duty.

[10] But what Ross tries to convey is that every prima facie duty has actual normative weight even though it may be overruled by other considerations.

Among the philosophers influenced by The Right and the Good are Philip Stratton-Lake, Robert Audi, Michael Huemer, and C.D.