Abstract

My dissertation is an extended discussion of the nature of morality's demands. The foil for my discussion is the consequentialist claim that it is always right to do what is best overall . I critically assess two radically different attempts to demonstrate that CR is false; that CR fails to adequately reflect the nature of morality's demands. I consider efforts to justify moral permissions to do less than what is best and moral requirements to do less than what is best . If either MP or MR can be justified, then CR must be false. I argue that efforts to account for MP are unsuccessful and that accounts of MR, despite what their proponents say, do not in fact justify MR.1 ;Both arguments are prelude to my analysis of the limits of morality's demands. Morality can be demanding in at least two different ways, or so I claim. In one sense, land according to some ethical theories, morality always demands certain things from agents, and it is just this relentlessness to which critics sometimes object. That is, some ethical theories are considered to be too systematically demanding. Consider a moral theory that embraces CR. Some critics of CR, including writers sympathetic to consequentialism, believe that CR leaves no room for agents to do as they please and is therefore too systematically demanding. Such critics believe that a correct moral theory is less systematically demanding than CR and should account for MP. ;Morality can also be demanding in the sense that morality sometimes demands that agents sacrifice or ignore projects, interests, or commitments that are more important to them than anything else, and it is just this rigorousness to which critics sometimes object. That is, some ethical theories are considered to be too rigorously demanding. Some writers believe that morality is less rigorously demanding than is implied by CR. This belief might be defended along a number of lines. For instance, one might think the existence of supererogatory acts recommends a distinction between sacrifices that are morally required and those sacrifices that are heroic, but cannot be demanded by morality. On the basis of this distinction, it might be held that there is a limit to what morality may demand, but no limit to what agents may permissibly sacrifice of themselves. Or one might believe that because this is the only life one has there are certain things morality cannot demand from one. Similarly, one might also think that if one has committed oneself to morally worthy projects, interests, and concerns that form the very basis for going on with one's life then morality cannot demand that one give these up. Against all these views, I argue that morality can demand virtually anything from an agent and that under certain circumstances an agent would be willing to sacrifice his deepest commitments to meet morality's demands. Though my view appears to make morality unduly demanding, I argue that it does not in fact, make it so. ;1I do not however believe that CR is true. So, my objections to MP and MR should not be taken as supporting my belief that CR is true