Moral Demands and Social Justice

A common strategy among the opponents of certain moral theories, and in particular consequentialism, is to argue that, for one reason or another, they are excessively demanding. Morality, they claim, must make room for us to pursue self-interest to some extent; or it must accommodate at least some of the personal projects that are most important to us; or it must allow us to give preference to our loved ones and friends. There is, then, according to this view, a ceiling to how much morality can demand of individuals. On some views this ceiling fluctuates with prevailing social and political conditions, demanding more of individuals the greater the prevailing level of injustice; even on these views, though, there must also be an absolute ceiling, i.e. what would be demanded of the best off individual in the most unjust conditions possible, and this would still be less than consequentialism would demand of such a person.

I'm inclined to reject at least most of these arguments; I think 1) consequentialism can account for these intuitions to some extent (we are often in better position to advance our own interests than those of others, life would be psychologically unbearable if we ALWAYS thought exclusively about maximizing the good rather than having certain projects of our own, which would undermine our ability to contribute to the good at all, we are very often in better position to aid friends and loved ones than strangers, etc.), and 2) in the cases in which the intuitions conflict with consequentialism, it is the intuitions that are wrong.

I want to turn the tables, at least to some extent, on those who argue for a ceiling to morality's demands, by presenting an argument for a floor to its demands. Like the more plausible views of the ceiling, my floor will vary with the level of injustice.

Here is a rather brief summary of how I think the argument can be made out:

1) it is a fundamental social goal to achieve social justice, whatever that consists in; that is to say, collectively, we are obligated to pursue social justice
2) the most plausible views of social justice are egalitarian in character
3) we live in conditions of massive social injustice (from 2 and the empirical facts), and therefore achieving social justice will require massive efforts
4)achieving social justice, like achieving any collective goal, requires contributions from individuals
5) there are moral demands on individuals to contribute to social justice, and full compliance with those demands would, necessarily, result in social justice (from 1 and 4); that is, it is absurd to think that social justice can only be achieved with the help of supererogation
6) the demands on each individual must be such that her compliance, along with the compliance of everyone else, would necessarily result in social justice (from 5)
7) the demands on each individual must be at least her fair share of the collective burden to achieve social justice (from 1-6)

Liam Murphy has argued, mainly based on considerations of fairness, that the demands on an individual cannot be greater than her fair share of the collective burden (he thinks they're not less either). I think his argument fails, and that morality can in fact be more demanding than that in conditions of less than full compliance. What my argument here is intended to show, however, is that any view that allows the demands on any individual to be less than her fair share of the collective burden to achieve social justice is wrong because it is not demanding enough. And this, I think, means that those who argue that morality cannot require individuals to make significant sacrifices involving their personal projects, relationships, and certainly self-interest, must be wrong. There is no guarantee that one's fair share of the collective burden will not require such sacrifices, especially in unjust conditions such as ours. The floor that I have argued for, then, is actually higher than others would put the ceiling. But if the arguments for the ceiling were right, then significant supererogation would be necessary in order to achieve social justice, and therefore either 1) or 2) would have be false. I suspect, however, that few will want to deny 1). My argument will, admittedly, not be convincing to those who deny 2); but since many of the philosophers who argue for something like a ceiling are inclined to accept 2), the argument is, I think, of practical significance.