What is a Moral Demand?

A common objection to consequentialism is that it is too demanding. Some take the fact that consequentialism would impose extreme demands on at least some agents, for example that it would require that well-off individuals refrain from all spending on luxuries in order to aid the world's worst off people, to be a decisive reason to reject the view. But we might wonder exactly what it is that is supposed to make the demands of consequentialism excessive, according to proponents of this view.

Liam Murphy points out that it is important to be clear about how the demands of moral theories are to be measured. The most obvious approach (and the one that seems to underlie the so-called demandingness objection) is to measure demands against the factual status quo. In the end this is the approach that Murphy himself endorses. But he points out that this way of measuring the demands of moral theories seems to undermine the appeal of the demandingness objection, rather than supporting it. After all, to think that the fact that a moral theory would impose extreme demands on some people relative to the factual status quo is a reason to reject the moral theory is to simply assume that there is something morally significant about the factual status quo; that is, this understanding of the demandingness objection privileges the factual status quo relative to other possible states of affairs. But, of course, there is nothing inherently morally significant about the factual status quo. The actual distribution of resources, for example, is, at least to some extent (and I think to a large extent) morally arbitrary; it is of no moral significance whatsoever. The fact that moral theories such as consequentialism would impose significant demands on those who happen to control vast resources is, then, no reason at all to reject such theories. It is also important to note that it is not just consequentialist theories, which require a great deal of the better off, that have the potential to impose extreme demands on individuals. Deontological restrictions can be extremely demanding as well; for example, if stealing, or even killing, is the only way for an individual to save himself and his family, deontological restrictions on performing actions of these types will be extremely demanding on that individual (in fact these restrictions will, in some cases, be even more demanding than the most thoroughly consequentialist views are for the very well off). So even if we think that there is something to be said for the demandingness objection, the theories often favored by those who make it will be undermined at least as much as consequentialism is.

Murphy proposes several other ways that we might understand what a moral demand is. The first is to understand demands relative to the correct moral theory itself, rather than relative to the factual status quo. On this view if one is not morally entitled to possess particular resources, then the fact that one is morally required to give up those resources does not count as a demand of the theory; demands are understood relative to moral entitlement. So, for example, if some version of consequentialism is the correct moral theory, and it requires that one refrain from luxury spending, then refraining from luxury spending is not a demand of the theory, since one is not morally entitled to engage in luxury spending. This approach, then, defines all moral demands out of existence, and therefore makes any demandingness objection impossible to make.

Now there is something right about this approach, in that it makes it clear that it is inappropriate to simply point to the fact that, if a particular theory were true, one would have to sacrifice certain advantages, in order to reject the theory. On this approach it is abundantly clear that the factual status quo is not in itself morally significant. But the approach also obscures some of the issues arising out of attempts to develop the demandingness objection, so I agree with Murphy that it should be rejected.

Murphy also suggests that we might understand moral demands relative to some standard of "minimal morality," which is defined in terms of what we take to be uncontroversial moral requirements, such as the requirement that we not murder people. But to proceed in this way is, as Murphy points out, to employ a conception of moral entitlement that coheres with the normative status quo, but not with more demanding views, and therefore to beg the question against such views. Murphy says of this approach:

"It defines away demands that, for those of us who are fairly well-off in current circumstances, are typically not that great, and counts as demanding only those principles we do not currently follow. So-called commonsense morality comes out imposing no demands at all, whereas, say, utilitarianism imposes extreme demands...And the demands of deontology also fall heavily on those for whom a life on the straight and narrow offers so little that, for example, drug dealing with its associated violence offers substantial relative benefits."

This brings out quite clearly the sense in which deontological views are inherently conservative, and sometimes even impose greater demands on those who are already worse off than it does on those who are fortunate enough to be well off. The fact that commonsense morality, which tends to be very much deontological, at times (and I would claim very often) involves greater demands, relative to the factual status quo, on the worse off gives us very good reason to be suspicious of commonsense morality (and, I think, suggests that commonsense morality is, to a large extent, ideological in Marx's sense).

All of this suggests that Murphy is right to claim that the demandingness objection in itself has no force whatsoever. If views such as consequentialism are to be rejected, they must be rejected on grounds other than their supposed excessive demandingness.