Abstract
How should we assess the burden of moral demands? A predominant assessment is provided by what Murphy calls the baseline of factual status-quo (FSQ): A moral theory is demanding if the level of agents’ well-being is reduced from the time they begin to comply perfectly with the theory. The aims of my paper are threefold. I will first discuss the limits of the FSQ baseline. Second, I suggest a different assessment, which examines moral demands from a whole-life perspective. My view is that even if agents’ compliance with a moral theory will not cause a substantial reduction to their existing level of well-being, the total quality of life that they may obtain from complying with this theory may still be lower than what they could have obtained by following some other moral theories. The third aim of this paper is that, through this investigation, I hope to explicate the relation between agents’ acceptance of a moral theory and the burden of demands that is created by it. I believe that we can achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of moral demands by paying attention to the psychological development of agents as they accept and internalize a moral theory.
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Notes
This is also called the problem of demandingness. Holders of this view believe that a moral theory is problematic if it imposes excessive demands on agents. See, for instance, Mackie (1977, pp. 129–134), Williams (1981, p. 18), Griffin (1996, pp. 90–91), Scheffler (1992, p. 102), Kumar (1999, pp. 275–309), and Herman (2000, pp. 29–45).
Apart from the impact on agents’ well-being, there is a different sense of demandingness: A moral theory is demanding because it is motivationally difficult for agents to comply with it. As indicated in the text, the demandingness limitation that I discuss in this paper is about well-being. The distinction between the different senses of demandingness is discussed in Keith Horton’s unpublished Ph.D. thesis The Humanitarian Case for Giving to Aid Agencies (2002). Horton attributes the distinction to Cohen, who uses the terminology of “costliness” and “difficulty” in Cohen (1978, pp. 238–240; 2000, pp. 20–26).
To put it crudely, in Kagan’s terminology, Singer (1972), Kagan (1989), and Unger (1996) are moral extremists, who believe that the demands of morality (especially in the case of famine relief) are great and they require agents to make huge sacrifice. In contrast, Scheffler (1992), Griffin (1996), Kumar (1999), and Miller (2004) are moral moderates who think that although agents have to assist the needy in poor countries, agents may still permissibly live largely the kind of life that they have been leading in modern consumerist society.
The term “the baseline of factual status-quo” is given by Murphy (2000, pp. 35–42). However, the idea of this baseline has been prevailing among philosophers in the discussion regarding the problem of demandingness, e.g. Mulgan (2002, p. 4), Cullity (2006, pp. 90–95, 132–134), and Kagan (1989, pp. 232–233).
Note that though Murphy thinks the baseline of the factual status-quo provides the “best available answer” to the problem of the assessment of demands, Murphy’s discussion is part of an attack on the force of demandingness objections against moral theories, given the indeterminacy of the baseline for assessing those demands. See Murphy (2000, pp. 34–35).
Although it is possible to develop the baseline of factual status-quo with regard to different theories of well-being, Murphy thinks that we do not have to do so. On his view, when an extreme demand is imposed on agents, “all plausible accounts of loss are likely to yield the same verdict” (p. 18). Of course, the point is that in the case of the serial killer, he may suffer a great loss if he restrains from murdering people. But this loss is attributable to a desire-satisfaction theory, not to an objective theory of the good life.
There may be a difference between following a moral rule (and I take a restriction to be one kind of rule) and following a moral theory: The rule against ruthless killing may be generated either by utilitarianism or by Kant’s deontological theory or by other moral theories. When agents follow this rule, it is unclear which moral theory they are following. So, in a particular context, when agents find it demanding to follow a rule, what is demanding for them may be the rule itself; they may not be concerned about, or be aware of, the theory which provides justification for the rule. In a different case, some agents may be committed followers of a particular moral theory, utilitarianism, Kant’s theory or some other. Then, if these agents find a moral rule derived from their moral theory demanding, this demandingness is attributable to the moral theory itself.
The starting point for thinking ethically is not a time at which people are conceived of as standing outside any ethical context. Rather it is a time at which people are conceived of as having grown up in a certain society, having perhaps started a family and having taken in the major beliefs of their society. See Annas (2000, p. 297).
This point concerns the capabilities of ordinary agents. Admittedly, some people may have an extraordinary character, which enables them to contribute everything to the poor and still live a good life. But people with such a character are quite exceptional, and not good reference points when we are assessing possible moral requirements.
Another example may be Nozickian individualism. But even though this theory may impose almost no demands on agents to assist the needy, this theory requires the agents to abide by a range of negative duties.
Is the requirement of monogamy an example of such demanding practices too? Would some people be living much better lives as a whole if they were allowed to keep more than one wife or have more than one husband? Should we understand certain people’s acts of infidelity as an indicator of their recalcitrant desires or as an indicator of nothing but their own moral weaknesses?
For the concept of whole-life utility and its difficulties (such as in the case of conflicting preferences), see Bricker (1980).
The idea of “whole-life total utility” is employed here only to represent a conception of whole-life well-being. The idea can be unpacked in light of either a hedonist view or other objective theories of well-being.
Might it be analogous to the case in which different people have their own weaknesses of character that do not prevent them from living lives which are meaningful?
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Acknowledgments
An earlier version of this paper was presented in 2008 at the Tenth Conference of the International Society for Utilitarian Studies, Kadish Center for Morality, Law and Public Affairs, UC Berkeley. I am grateful to the audience for a helpful discussion, especially to Steve Nathanson. Thanks are due to Roger Lee, Luke Mulhall, Wong Wai-Hung, Joseph Chan, Leonard Kahn and Peter Chau who read and commented on earlier drafts. I would also like to acknowledge Brad Hooker for his valuable advice on the paper throughout the various stages of its development.
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Sin, W. Internalization and moral demands. Philos Stud 157, 163–175 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9630-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-010-9630-0