The demandingness objection against consequentialism--that, since it bases the right on maximizing the good, it demands perfection from moral agents--has never struck me as being all that problematic. Indeed, I'm rather puzzled that so many find it a reductio; what's so weird about the claim that you should always do better?
Wild speculation: perhaps there's some connection here with the prevalence of atheism among philosophers. After all, if you grow up taking Romans 3:23 seriously ("For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God"), demandingness is exactly what one ought to expect from a moral theory. Hrmmm--are ex-Catholics more likely than others to be consequentialists?
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
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