The Impotence of the Demandingness Objection

Abstract

In this chapter I argue that the Demandingness Objection does not provide a self-standing reason to reject Consequentialism but must presuppose independent reasons to reject it such as the normative significance of the distinction between causing and allowing. I conclude that we should reject Consequentialism independently of the Demandingness Objection or not at all. The chapter is relevant to the debate over subjectivism because I go on to suggest that the Demandingness Objection may be best interpreted as the complaint that I have no reason to act as even the true morality requires rather than the complaint that an action is too demanding to be the thing that morality asks of me. Subjective accounts have a natural explanation, indeed vindication, for the apparent force of the Demandingness Objection, but one that does not turn out to vindicate complaints against demanding ethical theories qua ethical theories.

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