Does consequentialism demand too much?

Abstract

This essay examines three recent attempts to justify the view that agents are sometimes permitted to pursue their own projects rather than the overall good. The first, by David Heyd, argues that reasons to promote overall human welfare and reasons for pursuing one’s own ends are incommensurable. The second, by Thomas Nagel, argues that the satisfaction of adopted desires generates only agent-relative reasons, not agent-neutral ones. The third, by Samuel Scheffler, argues that a moral view must grant agents a prerogative to promote non-optimal outcomes, thereby acknowledging the natural independence of the personal point of view. However, each of these arguments is ultimately inadequate. The essay concludes that if the common belief that consequentialism demands too much cannot be defended, then it may be necessary to reconsider whether our intuitions on this matter are actually correct. – AI-generated abstract