I argue that moral philosophers have either misunderstood the problem of moral demandingness or at least failed to recognize important dimensions of the problem that undermine many standard assumptions. It has been assumed that utilitarianism concretely directs us to maximize welfare within a generation by transferring resources to people currently living in extreme poverty. In fact, utilitarianism seems to imply that any obligation to help people who are currently badly off is trumped by obligations to undertake actions targeted at improving (...) the value of the long-term future. Reflecting on the demands of beneficence in respect of the value of the far future forces us to view key aspects of the problem of moral demandingness in a very different light. GPI Working Paper No. 1-2020. (shrink)

Effective Altruism is a popular social movement that encourages individuals to donate to organizations that effectively address humanity’s most severe poverty. However, because Effective Altruists are committed to doing the most good in the most effective ways, they often argue that it is wrong to help those nearest to you. In this paper, I target a major subset of Effective Altruists who consider it a moral obligation to do the most good possible. Call these Obligation-Oriented Effective Altruists (OOEAs), and their (...) movement Obligation-Oriented Effective Altruism (OOEA). I argue that insofar as this variety of OOEA seems to commit us to refrain from helping the people right in front of us, there is something intuitively wrong about it. In response, I introduce an alternative model that embraces partiality: Mutual Aid. Mutual Aid is a network of community members, usually from the same geographical region, who share a commitment to offer, receive, and exchange material goods, wealth, and social support. I recommend Mutual Aid as a liberatory model, which—through empathy, solidarity, and care—mobilizes community building and provides a catalyst for community advocacy. As such, we should resist the claims of OOEAs that partially distributing our funds to people or causes we care about is morally wrong or even less than ideal. We do not have a moral obligation to use our funds “effectively;” rather, we have a broader obligation to address human suffering, and Mutual Aid is one moral alternative for discharging this duty. (shrink)

This chapter concerns the nature of our obligations as individuals when it comes to our emissions-producing activities and climate change. The first half of the chapter argues that the popular ‘expected utility’ approach to this question faces a problematic dilemma: either it gives skeptical verdicts, saying that there are no such obligations, or it yields implausibly strong verdicts. The second half of the chapter diagnoses the problem. It is argued that the dilemma arises from a very general feature of the (...) view, and thus is shared by other views as well. The chapter then discusses what an account of our individual obligations needs to look like if it is to avoid the dilemma. Finally, the discussion is extended beyond climate change to other collective impact contexts. (shrink)

We discuss Kant’s conception of beneficence against the background of the overdemandingness debate. We argue that Kant’s conception of beneficence constitutes a sweet spot between overdemandingess and undemandingess. To this end we defend four key claims that together constitute a novel interpretation of Kant’s account of beneficence: 1) for the same reason that we are obligated to be beneficent to others we are permitted to be beneficent to ourselves; 2) we can prioritise our own ends; 3) it is more virtuous (...) to do more rather than less when it comes to helping others; and 4) indifference to others is vicious. Finally, we explain how this represents a system of duties that gives our personal ends a moral standing without unacceptably moralising them. (shrink)

On what I take to be the standard account of supererogation, an act is supererogatory if and only if it is morally optional and there is more moral reason to perform it than to perform some permissible alternative. And, on this account, an agent has more moral reason to perform one act than to perform another if and only if she morally ought to prefer how things would be if she were to perform the one to how things would be (...) if she were to perform the other. I argue that this account has two serious problems. The first, which I call the latitude problem, is that it has counterintuitive implications in cases where the duty to be exceeded is one that allows for significant latitude in how to comply with it. The second, which I call the transitivity problem, is that it runs afoul of the plausible idea that the one-reason-morally-justifies-acting-against-another relation is transitive. What’s more, I argue that both problems can be overcome by an alternative account, which I call the maximalist account. (shrink)

Este trabajo se propone defender una interpretación moderada de los argumentos de Thomas Pogge sobre justicia y pobreza globales, elaborados en su libro La pobreza en el mundo y los derechos humanos. Para esto, se analizará minuciosamente la reconstrucción que los críticos hacen de los argumentos de Pogge. Con esto, se espera poner de manifiesto que dicha reconstrucción se aleja en muchos casos de una interpretación mínimamente caritativa y malinterpreta los argumentos originales de este autor. Así, en este trabajo, se (...) defenderán una tesis principal y una subtesis. 1. Tesis principal. El deber negativo de no “cooperar en el mantenimiento de instituciones sociales injustas sin hacer una protección que compense y esfuerzos de reforma para sus víctimas” (en adelante, el “deber de no contribuir con la injusticia”) es menos exigente de lo que los críticos de Pogge afirman. Para defender esta tesis, se mostrará la relación entre el deber negativo de no contribuir con la injusticia y las obligaciones positivas de 1) proteger a las víctimas de un orden institucional injusto y de 2) trabajar para reformar los rasgos injustos de ese orden. Asimismo, se tratará de establecer cuáles son las implicancias prácticas de estas dos obligaciones positivas. 2. Subtesis. La violación del deber de no contribuir con la injusticia no convierte a los agentes morales en “violadores” de derechos humanos, tal como los críticos de Pogge sostienen, sino en “contribuyentes”. Para defender esta subtesis, se examinarán las críticas que se le formulan al autor con respecto a la falta de cumplimento del deber de no contribuir con la injusticia y se explicitarán las consecuencias del incumplimiento de este deber y de las dos obligaciones positivas mencionadas. El objetivo general de este trabajo es ofrecer una interpretación consistente de los principales argumentos de Pogge sobre justicia y pobreza globales que esclarezca los puntos incomprendidos o malinterpretados por sus críticos más importantes. Así, este trabajo constituye una contribución valiosa al campo de estudio, ya que, 1) sienta sobre bases más firmes una de las teorías filosóficas contemporáneas más citadas y ampliamente debatidas sobre justicia global y 2) facilita un verdadero intercambio de ideas entre filósofos, filósofas y otros expertos en el tema, mediante un real entendimiento de los argumentos poggeanos. (shrink)

Some people are such impressive altruists that they seem to us to already be doing more than enough. And yet they see themselves as compelled to do even more. Can our view be reconciled with theirs? Can a moderate view of beneficence's demands be made consistent with a requirement to be ambitiously altruistic? I argue that a reconciliation is possible if we adopt a dynamic view of beneficence, which addresses the pattern that our altruism is required to take over time. (...) This frees up theoretical space for understanding how a moral duty of self-development can intersect with the requirements of beneficence, so that the amount that we are required to sacrifice increases without our beneficence becoming immoderate. (shrink)

This thesis is about the moral reasons we have to do less than best. It consists of six chapters. Part I of the thesis proposes, extends, and defends reasons to do less than best. In Chapter One (“The Conditional Obligation”) I outline and reject two recent arguments from Joe Horton and Theron Pummer for the claim that we have a conditional obligation to bring about the most good. In Chapter Two (“Agglomeration and Agent-Relative Costs”) I argue that agent-relative costs can (...) justify permissions to less than best in a far greater range of decisions contexts than we currently believe. In Chapter Three (“Risk and Aggregation”) I discuss how anti-aggregative moral theories deal with risk, whilst proposing an argument in favour of ex-post moral theories. -/- In Part II of the thesis, I discuss longtermism, presenting a series of reasons to believe we have both significant permissions and obligations to prioritise those in the short-term. In Chapter Four (“Listening to Future People”) I criticise a recent argument presented by Andreas Mogensen for the claim we cannot have obligations grounded in the wellbeing of future people. I then show that, even permitting the existence of obligations to future people, we still have significant reasons to resist longtermism on the grounds of partiality. In Chapter Five (“The Complaints of Future People”) I argue that scepticism about aggregation is inconsistent with an obligation, or indeed even a permission, to help far future people. In Chapter Six (“Leaving the Present Behind”) I explore the moral significance of “dooming”, whilst arguing that we have a pro tanto reason of fairness to prioritise aiding those currently in existence. (shrink)

Nonprofit organizations play a crucial role in society. Unfortunately, many such organizations are chronically underfunded and struggle to meet their objectives. These facts have significant implications for corporate philanthropy and Kant’s notion of imperfect duties. Under the concept of imperfect duties, businesses would have wide discretion regarding which charities receive donations, how much money to give, and when such donations take place. A perceived problem with imperfect duties is that they can lead to moral laxity; that is, a failure on (...) the part of businesses to fulfill their financial obligations to nonprofit organizations. This article argues the problem of moral laxity rests on a misinterpretation of Kantian ethics and, therefore, is really not a problem at all. As such, we argue corporate philanthropy while an imperfect duty should be interpreted more akin to perfect duties and, as a consequence, moral laxity does not arise for those corporations committed to acting on the basis of the moral law. More specifically, firms have duty-based obligations on the basis of benevolence, and as good corporate citizens, to help fund non-profit organizations. (shrink)

How much should we sacrifice for the sake of others? While some argue in favour of significant sacrifices, others contend that morality cannot demand too much from individuals. Recently, the debate has taken a new turn by focusing on moral demands under non-ideal conditions in which the essential interests of many people are set back. Under such conditions, in some views, moral theories must require extreme moral demands as anything less is incompatible with equal consideration of everyone’s interests. The insistence (...) on the extremeness of moral demands, however, presupposes a simplistic account of non-ideal conditions as characterized mainly by the non-compliance of many individuals. Non-ideal conditions are also characterized by institutional non-compliance, whereby institutions often do not do what they ought to do. Institutional non-compliance is significant as it increases the size of moral demands significantly, thereby exacerbating the conflict between these demands and the self-interest of individuals subjected to these institutions. I argue that individuals have a meta-interest in not experiencing such internal conflicts as these can undermine their affirmation of self-respect. Meta-interest can be advanced by adopting the promotion of just institutions as an ultimate aim, as such institutions lessen the conflict and, accordingly, enable us to live more harmonious lives. Moreover, the promotion of just institutions allows us to affirm our sense of self-respect under non-ideal conditions too. Because the promotion of just institutions is in our self-interest, this is not an extreme but a moderate moral demand. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

En el presente artículo me ocupo de la discusión acerca de cuán exigentes son nuestras obligaciones de contribuir con dinero y tiempo a las agencias humanitarias que asisten a personas en situación de pobreza extrema en el mundo. Defiendo una posición intermedia, moderada, frente a la posición extrema formulada por Peter Singer y frente a la posición según la cual nuestras obligaciones son mínimas. La objeción principal contra esas dos posiciones es que, cuando analizan la situación en que los potenciales (...) donantes se encuentran frente a las personas en situación de pobreza extrema, omiten el carácter iterativo que es propio de esa situación. La posición moderada, en cambio, tiene en cuenta ese carácter, gracias a que entiende a nuestras obligaciones hacia los pobres globales como obligaciones imperfectas. In this article I engage in the debate about the demandingness of our duties to contribute with money and time to humanitarian agencies that assist people who live in extreme poverty around the world. I defend an intermediate, moderate, view against Peter Singer's extreme view, and also against the view according to which our duties are minimal. The main objection regarding those two views is that, when they analyze the situation in which potential donors are vis-à-vis people who live in extreme poverty, they miss its distinctive iterative character. The moderate view, on the contrary, pays heed to that character, thanks to its account of our duties towards the global poor as imperfect duties. (shrink)

Either a person's claim to subsistence goods is held against institutions equipped to distribute social benefits and burdens fairly or it is made regardless of such a social scheme. If the former, then one's claim is not best understood as based on principles setting out a subsistence goods entitlement, but rather on principles of equitable social distribution — a fair share. If, however, the claim is not against a given social scheme, no plausible principle exists defining what counts as a (...) reasonable burden for any of the available agents to secure subsistence. No justifiable principle exists implying generalised perfect duties any agent could clearly follow or clearly breach that secure subsistence conditions for others. At best we can justify rescue duties under very specific conditions, or general but imperfect duties to improve arrangements. Neither of these obviously correlates with human rights standards. Attempts in the literature to overcome the dilemma by claiming basic rights can correlate with imperfect duties or can generate duties to work towards institutions that ‘perfect’ our imperfect duties, are faulty. I then show how the dilemma can be avoided by accounts of human rights focusing on minimum respectful treatment rather than goods or interests. (shrink)

Faced with endlessly repeated opportunities to save drowning children, most people think morality intuitively permits us to indulge in at least some goods that are not nearly as important as a child’s life. Some philosophers argue that this intuition gives us an important (though defeasible) reason to think we may sometimes permissibly refuse to save a life even when we can do so at insignificant cost. I argue that recent psychological experiments should make us wary of this claim.

What is the foundation of consent in the criminal law? Classically liberal commentators have offered at least three distinct theories. J.S. Mill contends we value consent because individuals are the best judges of their own interests. Joel Feinberg argues an individual’s consent matters because she has a right to autonomy based on her intrinsic sovereignty over her own life. Joseph Raz also focuses on autonomy, but argues that society values autonomy as a constituent element of individual well-being, which it is (...) the state’s duty to promote. The criminal law’s approach to the problem of non-contemporaneous consent—prospective consent and retrospective consent—casts a unique light on the differences among these three justifications. Peter Westen claims neither Mill’s nor Feinberg’s justifications for consent fully explains how non-contemporaneous consent is treated in the criminal law. Specifically, Mill’s “self-interest” conception explains the criminal law’s limited recognition of prospective consent, but cannot explain its total rejection of retrospective consent. Conversely, Feinberg’s “sovereign autonomy” conception explains why the criminal law rejects retrospective consent, but cannot explain why the law recognizes irrevocable prospective consent only in limited circumstances. I resolve this dilemma by explaining that Raz’s “autonomy is good” conception is consistent with both the criminal law’s limited recognition of irrevocable prospective consent and its total rejection of retrospective consent. This suggests the existing criminal law embodies Raz’s theory that it is the duty of the state to promote morality, in particular the moral good of individual well-being through living autonomously. In contrast, the criminal law’s treatment of consent would have to be modified if it were to reflect Mill’s “self-interest” conception, or Feinberg’s “sovereign autonomy” conception. (shrink)

I propose a novel way to understand the stringency of Kant’s conception of beneficence. This novel understanding can ground our intuition that we do not have to forego (almost) all pursuit of our personal ends. I argue that we should understand the application of imperfect duties to specific cases according to the framework set by the adoption and promotion of ends. Agents have other ends than obligatory ones and they must weigh obligatory ends against these other ends. Obligatory ends are (...) special among ends only insofar as their adoption is not optional. My reading of the normative status of imperfect duties affords a way of thinking about beneficence modelled on the everyday ways in which agents pursue their personal projects and weigh different ends against each other. This establishes a middle-ground between an extremely demanding conception of beneficence and an overly latitudinarian one. Furthermore, it helps us understand why we do not have to be maximally beneficent and why there is a bias towards the near in our thinking about rescue cases. (shrink)

The performance of one option can entail the performance of another. For instance, I have the option of baking a pie as well as the option of baking, and baking a pie entails baking. Now, suppose that I have both reason to bake and reason to bake a pie. Which, if either, grounds the other? Do I have reason to bake in virtue of my having reason to perform some instance of baking, such as pie baking? Or do I have (...) reason to bake a pie in virtue of my having reason to bake? Or does neither ground the other? Perhaps, the reason in each case is grounded in the fact that each option would itself have optimal consequences. The aim of this paper is to compare two alternative responses to this issue—omnism and maximalism—and to argue that the latter is more plausible. Omnism is the view that what grounds a reason for performing an option is always that it has some feature F. By contrast, maximalism holds that sometimes what grounds a reason for performing an option is not that it is itself F, but that it is entailed by some other option that is F. I’ll argue that maximalism is more plausible, for it avoids two critical problems that befall omnism. (shrink)

There is an increasing interest in the possibility of using nudges to promote people's health. Following the advances in developmental biology and epigenetics, it is clear that one's health is not always the result of one's own choices. In the period surrounding pregnancy, maternal choice behaviour has a significant influence on perinatal morbidity and mortality as well as the development of chronic diseases later in life. One's health is thus a matter of one's own as well as one's maternal choices. (...) Therefore, self-regarding and other-regarding nudges should be considered as viable strategies to promote health. In this article, we introduce the concept of other-regarding nudges. We use the harm principle and the principle of beneficence to justify these other-regarding nudges. We conclude by stressing the importance of a fair assessment of expectations towards the nudgee, when determining whether a nudge is aimed at preventing harm or promoting a good. (shrink)