It is common for moral philosophers to reject a moral theory on the basis that its verdicts are unreasonably demanding—it requires too much of us to be a correct account of our moral obligations. Even though such objections frequently strike us as convincing, they give rise to two challenges: Are demandingness objections really independent of other objections to moral theories? Do standard demandingness objections not presuppose that costs borne by the comfortably off are more (...) important than costs borne by the poor? These challenges have led some writers to question whether there really can be convincing demandingness objections, notwithstanding their strong initial appeal. David Sobel has argued that standard demandingness objections are ‘impotent’, Liam Murphy that they can be ‘dissolved’. In this paper, I aim to vindicate the possibility of demandingness objections by addressing these two challenges. (shrink)

This paper’s first section invokes a relevant meta-ethical principle about what a moral theory needs in order to be plausible and superior to its rivals. In subsequent sections, I try to pinpoint exactly what the demandingness objection has been taken to be. I try to explain how the demandingness objection developed in reaction to impartial act-consequentialism’s requirement of beneficence toward strangers. In zeroing in on the demandingness objection, I distinguish it from other, more or less closely related, (...) objections. In particular, I discuss arguments put forward by Bernard Williams concerning integrity, Samuel Scheffler on prerogatives, and Liam Murphy on fairness. The final part of the paper acknowledges some ways in which vagueness bedevils my own rule-consequentialism’s rules about doing good and preventing disasters. (shrink)

Consequentialism, many philosophers have claimed, asks too much of us to be a plausible ethical theory. Indeed, the theory's severe demandingness is often claimed to be its chief flaw. My thesis is that as we come to better understand this objection, we see that, even if it signals or tracks the existence of a real problem for Consequentialism, it cannot itself be a fundamental problem with the view. The objection cannot itself provide good reason to break with Consequentialism, because (...) it must presuppose prior and independent breaks with the view. The way the objection measures the demandingness of an ethical theory reflects rather than justifies being in the grip of key anti-Consequentialist conclusions. We should reject Consequentialism independently of the Objection or not at all. Thus, we can reduce by one the list of worrisome fundamental complaints against Consequentialism. (shrink)

Dogged resistance to demanding moral views frequently takes the form of The Demandingness Objection. Premise (1): Moral view V demands too much of us. Premise (2): If a moral view demands too much of us, then it is mistaken. Conclusion: Therefore, moral view V is mistaken. Objections of this form harass major theories in normative ethics as well as prominent moral views in applied ethics and political philosophy. The present paper does the following: (i) it clarifies and distinguishes (...) between various demandingness objections in the philosophical literature, (ii) identifies a formidable and interesting form of the demandingness objection that targets a wide scope of moral views, and (iii) defuses this objection by developing a local skeptical argument from unreliability the form of which may, interestingly, be effectively deployed in other areas of philosophy. (shrink)

This paper examines possible interpretations of the Demandingness Objection as it is supposed to work against Consequentialist ethical theories.

Being a pacifist who refrains from lethal violence is considered a praiseworthy commitment but not morally obligatory. One reason for denying that pacifism is morally obligatory is the high cost that would be implied for agents under attack, who cannot defend their own lives. Thus, pacifists are usually seen as lambs between lions and, therefore, pacifism is seen as morally over-demanding. In this paper, I intend to clarify the over-demandingness objection and to show its limits against pacifism. First, I (...) argue that the cost of an act is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition to determine its obligatory nature. Second, arguing from an analogy to Batman, I maintain that there is a plausible moral obligation to never use lethal violence against another human being that arises from adopting a specific social role, namely, the leadership of a pacifist movement. (shrink)

In his tripartite theory of corporate responsibility, Kenneth Goodpaster argues for the inclusion of “Comprehensive Moral Thinking (CMT)” as the third part alongside shareholder and stakeholder thinking. CMT requires managers sometimes to act for reasons of dignity or a just community, against what shareholder and stakeholder thinking recommend. To address concerns about the demandingness of CMT, Goodpaster argues that the responsibilities it imposes are significant but qualified or conditional: they require only that managers make efforts to address problems of (...) dignity and justice, especially in cooperation with other willing firms. If extreme efforts are required or if other firms are unwilling to cooperate, managers can be justified in deciding in favor of shareholder or stakeholder values, even when dignity or justice is at stake. I raise two problems for the appeal to qualified responsibility—an extensional problem about the inability of the account to yield the correct judgment in important cases and an internal problem about the coherence of the account when qualified responsibility is included. I conclude by considering the prospects of a theory that includes CMT but rejects qualified responsibility. (shrink)

The Demandingness Objection is the objection that a moral theory or principle is unacceptable because it asks more than we can reasonably expect. David Sobel, Shelley Kagan and Liam Murphy have each argued that the Demandingness Objection implicitly – and without justification – appeals to moral distinctions between different types of cost. I discuss three sets of cases each of which suggest that we implicitly assume some distinction between costs when applying the Demandingness Objection. We can explain (...) each set of cases, but each set requires appeal to a separate dimension of the Demandingness Objection. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs an Indian Buddhist response to the overdemandingness objection, the claim that a moral theory asks too much of its adherents. In the first section, I explain the objection and argue that some Mahāyāna Buddhists, including Śāntideva, face it. In the second section, I survey some possible ways of responding to the objection as a way of situating the Buddhist response alongside contemporary work. In the final section, I draw upon writing by Vasubandhu and Śāntideva in reconstructing a (...) Mahāyāna response to the objection. An essential component of this response is the psychological transformation that the bodhisattva achieves as a result of realizing the nonexistence of the self. This allows him to radically identify his well-being with the well-being of others, thereby lessening the tension between self and others upon which the overdemandingness objection usually depends. Emphasizing the attention Mahāyāna authors pay to lessening moral demandingness in this way increases our appreciation of the philosophical sophistication of their moral thought and highlights an important strategy for responding to the overdemandingness objection that has been underdeveloped in contemporary work. (shrink)

Public health policies often require individuals to make personal sacrifices for the sake of protecting other individuals or the community at large. Such requirements can be more or less demanding for individuals. This paper examines the implications of demandingness for public health ethics and policy. It focuses on three possible public health policies that pose requirements that are differently demanding: vaccination policies, policy to contain antimicrobial resistance, and quarantine and isolation policies. Assuming the validity of the ‘demandingness objection’ (...) in ethics, we argue that states should try to pose requirements that individuals would have an independent moral obligation to fulfil, and therefore that are not too demanding. In such cases, coercive measures are ethically justified, especially if the interventions also entail some benefits to the individuals; this is, for example, the case of vaccination policies. When public health policies need to require individuals to do something that is too demanding to constitute an independent moral obligation, states have an obligation to either provide incentives to give individuals non-moral reasons to fulfil a certain requirement – as in the case of policies that limit antibiotic prescriptions – or to compensate individuals for being forced to do something that is too demanding to constitute an independent moral obligation – as in the case of quarantine and isolation policies. (shrink)

My aim is to propose a better way to understand moral demandingness: a counterfactual view that requires us to consider the demands that moral theories make across other possible worlds. Seemingly, the demandingness of any moral theory or principle should be evaluated in terms of that theory’s general demandingness. This, in turn, implies that we ought to be concerned about the possible demandingness of moral theories and not just about how demanding they actually are. This counterfactual (...) view might also have some surprising implications about how demanding commonsense morality really is. After all, commonsense morality might be extremely demanding in many possible worlds. This consideration, in turn, risks undermining the commonsense moral theorist's ability to make purely cost-based demandingness objections against consequentialism, giving us strong reasons to worry about the purely cost-based demandingness objection’s viability in general. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that established responses to the demandingness objection fail to acknowledge an alternative explanation of the intuitive pull of this objection for a significant subset of norms being subject to it. This is the class of imperfect collective duties, which give rise to conceptually distinct objections from fairness that nonetheless permeate many clear examples of intuitively problematic moral demands. Such duties obtain where it is morally required to attain a certain outcome O, yet obtaining (...) O does not require each moral agent to do as much as they individually can but instead requires a finite amount of effort that can be variously allocated to different agents – think of classic collective action problems such as protesting against an unjust policy, lobbying a government, donating to disaster relief, or hosting refugees. -/- In such cases, our collective ability to attain O grounds a collective duty C to attain O, but this collective duty can be translated into various schemes of individual duties P to contribute towards O. Accordingly, this decomposition of C raises a problem of distributive justice. In fact, many intuitive objections to unfair distributions in such cases can be readily accounted for with the conceptual apparatus of prominent theories of distributive justice, but not by standard theories of interpersonal morality. For instance, the moral relevance of the fact that performing a composite duty P is more burdensome for agent A than for agent B can readily be explained in luck-egalitarian terms. Yet both utilitarians and contractualists could not account for this fact independently of an appeal to the demandingness objection, provided that the moral importance of the outcome attainable through P still trumps reasons against it that are due to the burden borne by the agent. -/- Put briefly, then, we need to clearly distinguish objections that morality demands _too much_ of me from objections that morality demands too much _of me_. Doing so is likely to make accepting the demandingness of morality properly construed more intuitively plausible, perhaps as mitigated by certain existing responses. (shrink)

It is common for philosophers to reject otherwise plausible moral theories on the ground that they are objectionably demanding, and to endorse “Moderate” alternatives. I argue that while support can be found within the method of reflective equilibrium for Moderate moral principles of the kind that are often advocated, it is much more difficult than Moderates have supposed to provide support for the view that morality’s demands in circumstances like ours are also Moderate. Once we draw a clear distinction between (...) Moderate accounts of the content of moral principles, and Moderate accounts of morality’s demands in circumstances like ours, we can see that defenses of Moderate views that include both of these components are subject to both methodological and substantive objections. I consider arguments for Moderate views that have been made by Samuel Scheffler and Richard Miller, and argue that both are methodologically problematic because they rely on appeals to intuitions that we have strong grounds to think are unreliable. I conclude that we must take seriously the possibility that Moderate principles, applied to well off people in circumstances like ours, imply demands that are much more extensive than Moderates typically accept. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDemandingness objections to consequentialism often claim that consequentialism underestimates the moral significance of the stranger/special other distinction, mistakenly extending to strangers demands it is proper for special others to make on us, and concluding that strangers may properly demand anything of us if it increases aggregate goodness. This argument relies on false assumptions about our relations with special others. Boundaries between ourselves and special others are both a common and a good-making feature of our relations with them. Hence, (...) class='Hi'>demandingness objections that rely on the argument in question fail. But the same observations about our relations with special others show that there are many demands special others may not properly make, and since we cannot be more guilty of unjustified partiality in insisting on boundaries between ourselves and strangers than on boundaries between ourselves and special others, there are – as demandingness objections maintain – some demands strangers may not properly make on us. (shrink)

We discuss the demandingness of Kant’s ethics. Whilst previous discussions of this issue focused on imperfect duties, our first aim is to show that Kantian demandingness is especially salient in the class of perfect duties. Our second aim is to introduce a fine-grained picture of demandingness by distinguishing between different possible components of a moral theory which can lead to demandingness: a required process of decision making, overridingness and the stringent content of demands, due to a (...) standpoint of moral purity. This distinction allows a specification of the sources of demandingness in Kant. The most characteristically Kantian form of demandingness springs from overridingness and purity and comes as a constant threat that an agent might find herself in a situation in which, due to no fault of her own, she is required to sacrifice everything for little to no non-moral goods. Our third aim is to discuss whether Kant has the resources to reply to those who criticize his ethics based on its demandingness. For this purpose we discuss Kant’s notion of “rationalizing” in the context of various types of current conceptions of demandingness and calls for moderate ethical theories. (shrink)

Consequentialist doctrines have often been criticized for their excessive demandingness, in that they require the thorough instrumentalization of each person’s life as a vehicle for the production of good consequences. In turn, the proponents of such doctrines have often objected to what they perceive as the irrationality of the demandingness of deontological duties. In this paper, I shall address objections of the latter kind in an effort to show that they are unfounded. My investigation of this matter (...) will unfold by reference to a scenario that strikingly and concretely exemplifies the demandingness of deontological duties. That scenario, which involves a situation of torture (specifically, placatory torture – in other words, torture undertaken for the purpose of appeasing people who have demanded that it be administered), will serve as a springboard for my endeavor to vindicate the rationality of deontological absolutes and will help to illuminate the endeavor’s practical implications. (shrink)

What does it mean to object to a moral theory, such as maximizing consequentialism, on the grounds that it is too demanding? It is apparently to say that its requirements are implausibly stringent. This suggests an obvious response: Modify the theory so that its requirements are no longer as stringent. A consequentialist may do this either by placing the requirement threshold below maximization – thereby arriving at satisficing consequentialism – or, more radically, by dispensing with deontological notions such as “requirement” (...) altogether – thereby arriving at scalar consequentialism. Suppose, however, that a moral theory’s demandingness is not a matter of its requirements being stringent, but whether it entails that we have most reason, all things considered, to undertake burdensome actions. If this is the right account of demandingness – as I shall argue – then neither modification necessarily alleviates demandingness. We are led to the surprising conclusion that neither satisficing consequentialism nor scalar consequentialism is inherently less demanding than their more familiar maximizing counterpart. They are less demanding only when supplemented with ancillary, and controversial, assumptions. (shrink)

I discuss Bernard Williams’ ‘integrity objection’ – his version of the demandingness objection to unreasonably demanding ‘extremist’ moral theories such as consequentialism – and argue that it is best understood as presupposing the internal reasons thesis. However, since the internal reasons thesis is questionable, so is Williams’ integrity objection. I propose an alternative way of bringing out the unreasonableness of extremism, based on the notion of the agent’s autonomy, and show how an objection to this proposal can be outflanked (...) by a strategy that also outflanks the ‘paradox of deontology.’. (shrink)

Consequentialism has been challenged on the grounds that it is too demanding. I will respond to the problem of demandingness differently from previous accounts. In the first part of the paper, I argue that consequentialism requires us to distinguish the justification of an act \ from the justification of an act \, where \ is an act of praise or blame. In the second part of the paper, I confront the problem of demandingness. I do not attempt to (...) rule out the objection; instead, I argue that if certain plausible empirical claims about moral motivation are true, we morally ought not to blame people for failing to meet certain very demanding obligations. With this theory, we create a space in consequentialism for intuitions questioning the plausibility of demanding obligations. I conclude the paper by showing that separate justifications for \ and \ may also give us a theoretical niche for intuitions about supererogation. (shrink)

In this paper, I sketch a Kantian account of duties of rescue, which I take to be compatible with Kant’s theory. I argue that there is in fact no “trumping relation” between imperfect and perfect duties but merely that “latitude shrinks away” in certain circumstances. Against possible demandingness objections, I explain why Kant thought that imperfect duty must allow latitude for choice and argue that we must understand the necessary space for pursuing one’s own happiness as entailed by (...) Kant’s justification of one’s duty to promote other’s happiness. Nevertheless, becoming worthy of happiness has always priority over one’s own happiness, even when circumstances are such that we cannot secure our own happiness without seriously neglecting more pressing needs of other persons. I conclude that Kant’s moral theory calls for complementation by the political and juridical domain. Implementing just political institutions and creating satisfactorily well-ordered societies create an external world which is friendlier to our attempts to reconcile moral integrity and a happy human life. (shrink)

In the years to come, a great number of people are going to be displaced due to climate change. Climate refugees are going to migrate to find somewhere more hospitable to live. In light of this, many countries are likely to try to prevent the influx of climate refugees, and more specifically argue that they cannot reasonably be required to take in large numbers of refugees as this is simply too demanding. This objection—the demandingness objection to taking in climate (...) refugees—is the focus of the present article. The ‘demandingness objection’ is clarified in greater detail. And it is pointed out that it relies on agent-relative options and that, according to what is dubbed ‘Kagan’s conditional’, agent-relative options require an agent-relative constraint against harming. This constraint, however, is violated when states significantly contribute to climate change and thus cause people to be harmed by the effects thereof. On this basis, it is argued that such states forfeit their right to invoke the demandingness objection. Roughly, when a state violates an individual’s right not to be harmed, it owes that individual to undo the harmful condition, or if that is not possible at least some form of compensation, and it cannot be relieved from that obligation by simply pointing out that it is costly to comply with it. (shrink)

This volume responds to the growing interest in finding explanations for why moral claims may lose their validity based on what they ask of their addressees. Two main ideas relate to that question: the moral demandingness objection and the principle "ought implies can." Though both of these ideas can be understood to provide an answer to the same question, they have usually been discussed separately in the philosophical literature. The aim of this collection is to provide a focused and (...) comprehensive discussion of these two ideas and the ways in which they relate to one another, and to take a closer look at the consequences for the limits of moral normativity in general. Chapters engage with contemporary discussions surrounding "ought implies can" as well as current debates on moral demandingness, and argue that applying the moral demandingness objection to the entire range of normative ethical theories also calls for an analysis of its presuppositions. The contributions to this volume are at the leading edge of ethical theory, and have implications for moral theorists, philosophers of action, and those working in metaethics, theoretical ethics and applied ethics. (shrink)

Critical literatures, and public discourses, on public health policies and practices often present fixated concerns with paternalism. In this paper, rather than focus on the question of whether and why intended instances of paternalistic policy might be justified, we look to the wider, real-world socio-political contexts against which normative evaluations of public health must take place. We explain how evaluative critiques of public health policy and practice must be sensitive to the nuance and complexity of policy contexts. This includes sensitivity (...) to the ‘imperfect’ reach and application of policy, leading to collateral effects including collateral paternalism. We argue that theoretical critiques must temper their demandingness to real-world applicability, allowing for the detail of social and policy contexts, including harm reduction: apparent knock-down objections of paternalism cannot hold if they are limited to an abstract or artificially-isolated evaluation of the reach of a public health intervention. (shrink)

The paper begins with a detailed discussion of the Overdemandingness Objection to consequentialism. It argues that the best interpretation of the Objection is the one that focuses on reasons: consequentialism is overdemanding because it demands us, with decisive force, to do things that, intuitively, we do not have decisive reason to do. After this, the paper goes on to offer three – so far in the literature unpursued – responses to the Objection. The first puts forward a constitutive role of (...) instutions in determining and, in face of the Objection, lowering the demands of consequentialism; the second argues that consequentialism does not give us decisive reasons to act; the third doubts that the intuition that consequentialist requirements lack decisive force, does in fact exists. (shrink)

Can morality be so demanding that we have reason not to follow its dictates? According to many, it can, if that morality is a consequentialist one. We take the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given and are also not concerned with finding the best response to the Objection. Instead, our main aim is to explicate the intuitive background of the Objection and to see how this background could be investigated. This double (...) aim leads to different albeit connected threads of inquiry. We first outline the Objection, its different forms and how intuition figures in them. After this, we move on to consider the ongoing debate about the use of intuitions in (moral) philosophy with a focus on two challenges: what intuitions are and how we can detect them. To answer these challenges, we propose an account according to which moral intuitions are seemings that are characterized by being non-inferential, spontaneous, non-doxastic, phenomenologically distinctive, non-sensory, intrinsically motivating, and stable. Armed with these seven “markers” of moral intuition, we put a forward a complex experimental methodology and raise and respond to possible problems with it. (shrink)

This thesis is about demandingness objections. It is claimed that various moral theories ask too much of moral agents, and for that reason should be rejected or modified accordingly. In the first chapter, I consider what this objection entails, particularly distinguishing it from Bernard Williams's integrity objection. The second chapter investigates several attempts to undermine the objection. I contend that their arguments for a more burdensome conception of morality fail, and that accepting their `extreme' view would leave us (...) unable to explain much of our moral phenomenology. In the third chapter, I analyse what features of a moral theory make it susceptible to demandingness objections. Through this discussion I highlight social factors and psychological factors as potential candidates for generating the problem. Making use of these potential diagnoses, in chapter four, I examine the responses to demandingness objections by Richard Miller and Liam Murphy, which can provide verdicts sensitive to these features. In the fifth chapter, I examine the concept of blame and its relationship to moral wrongness. Noting this relationship and how an action's difficulty can affect whether we deem conduct blameworthy, I consider a recent proposal by Brian McElwee, that the difficulty of certain actions explains why they are too demanding. I reject this proposal, instead regarding difficulty as providing excuse conditions. However, through the discussion I draw attention to the fact that sub-optimal behaviour often does not need an excuse, suggesting that there is no `default' obligation to do the best. In the final chapter, I offer a way to consider how obligations are generated, utilising the concept of reasonableness. By incorporating this concept, and giving it a relativistic analysis, I suggest a theory can avoid demandingness objections. (shrink)

Consequentialism is often criticised as being overly demanding, and this overdemandingness is seen as sufficient to reject it as a moral theory. This paper takes the plausibility and coherence of this objection – the Demandingness Objection – as a given. Our question, therefore, is how to respond to the Objection. We put forward a response that we think has not received sufficient attention in the literature: institutional consequentialism. On this view institutions take over the consequentialist burden, whereas individuals, special (...) occasions aside, are required to set up and maintain institutions. We first introduce the Objection, then explain the theory of institutional consequentialism and how it responds to the Objection. In the remainder of the paper, we defend the view against potential challenges. (shrink)

This article argues that bodily awareness is a basic form of self-consciousness through which perceiving agents are directly conscious of the bodily self. It clarifies the nature of bodily awareness, categorises the different types of body-relative information, and rejects the claim that we can have a sense of ownership of our own bodies. It explores how bodily awareness functions as a form of self-consciousness and highlights the importance of certain forms of bodily awareness that share an important epistemological property with (...) canonical forms of self-consciousness such as introspection. (shrink)

One response to the demandingness objection is that it begs the question against consequentialism by assuming a moral distinction between what a theory requires and what it permits. According to the consequentialist, this distinction stands in need of defense. However, this response may also beg the question, this time at the methodological level, regarding the credibility of the intuitions underlying the objection. The success of the consequentialist's response thus turns on the role we assign to intuitions in our moral (...) methodology. After presenting the demandingness objection to consequentialism and revealing the underlying methodological stalemate, I break the stalemate by appealing to research in the cognitive neuroscience of intuitions. Given the evidence for the hypothesis that our moral intuitions are fundamentally emotional (rather than rational) responses, we should give our intuitions a modest (rather than robust) role in our moral methodology. This rescues the consequentialist's response to the demandingness objection. (shrink)