A Critique of Three Recent Studies on Morality's Demands. Murphy, Mulgan, Cullity and the Issue of Cost

Abstract

This paper critically discusses three studies about the question of how much morality may demand ofmoral agents. These studies may together constitute the most prominent literature about this question toemerge in recent years. In reverse order, they are: Garrett Cullity’s The Moral Demands of Affluence(Oxford, 2004), Tim Mulgan’s The Demands of Consequentialism (Oxford, 2001), and Liam Murphy’sMoral Demands in Nonideal Theory (Oxford, 2000). The paper’s first part very briefly presents theposition that these studies defend, and in addition it is argued that all three studies risk denying, forunconvincing reasons, an intuitively very plausible statement, namely that moral agents morally ought todo great good whenever they can do so at little cost to themselves. The second part of the paper thenconsiders the critical position that the three mentioned books take towards an ‘appeal to cost to themoral agent’. Such an appeal, the details of which will be discussed in the paper, has often been prominentin arguments for limiting the demands made on moral agents. I argue that the doubts that the threestudies have about this appeal, are unwarranted.