Moral Demands and Not Doing the Best One Can
| Abstract | The problem of extreme demands is one of the most intractable in contemporary moral theory. On the one hand, it seems that a failure to prevent great suffering at little cost to ourselves is morally wrong; given the amount of suffering in the world and the comparatively trivial nature of the requisite sacrifices, this intuition demands that we give up quite a lot. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem to us that we act wrongly in living lives characterised by only moderate sacrifice, in which our time and resources are disproportionately used to benefit ourselves and those close to us. These two intuitions are extremely difficult to reconcile within any moral theory that recognises a duty to promote the general good. In this paper, however, I will suggest one possible way of doing so. My suggestion requires taking a closer look at the way in which the demand to the promote the good is derived: specifically, at the way our option set is characterised and the information that we take into account in weighing these options. I will suggest that there are certain assumptions it is plausible to make regarding the relevance of information about our own and other agents’ actions, and that once these assumptions are made, we can see how permissions may be derived within the framework of good-promotion | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesPer Sundman (2000). The Good Manager – a Moral Manager? Journal of Business Ethics 27 (3).
Iain Law (2011). Respect for Autonomy: Its Demands and Limits in Biobanking. Health Care Analysis 19 (3):259-268.
Jason Kawall (2010). The Epistemic Demands of Environmental Virtue. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 23 (1-2):109-28.
Lisa Rivera (2007). Sacrifices, Aspirations and Morality: Williams Reconsidered. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (1):69 - 87.
Vasiliki Karavakou (2006). The Educational Demands of a Philosophical Theory of Moral Conscience in a Modern Democracy. The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 4:65-71.
Rüdiger Bittner (1989). What Reason Demands. Cambridge University Press.
Jurgen de Wispelaere (2004). Altruism, Impartiality, and Moral Demands. In Jonathan Seglow (ed.), The Ethics of Altruism. F. Cass Publishers.
Liam B. Murphy (2000). Moral Demands in Nonideal Theory. Oxford University Press.
William Sin (2012). Internalization and Moral Demands. Philosophical Studies 157 (2):163-175.
Liam B. Murphy (1993). The Demands of Beneficence. Philosophy and Public Affairs 22 (4):267-292.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2010-07-27Total downloads20 ( #61,533 of 549,088 )Recent downloads (6 months)4 ( #19,228 of 549,088 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
