Relation to others· Morals
Maximalism
Axis: Moral demandingness — How much does morality demand of us?
Morality demands a great deal: if I can prevent a great harm at a modest cost to myself, I must do so. Our duties do not stop at refraining from harm; they include actively helping those most in need, wherever they are, and may claim a substantial share of our resources.
Movements 1
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Utilitarianisminferable
Impartial maximization of well-being tends toward a highly demanding morality: argues we ought to give up to the point where further sacrifice would cost something of comparable moral importance, which can absorb almost all of our surplus. On this point the movement remains divided, with restricting moral and legal interference to harms done to others.
Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality · Mill, On Liberty
Philosophers 7
Schopenhauerexplicit
His moral formula has two tiers: 'harm no one' (justice), a strict and fully enforceable duty, and 'help everyone as much as you can' (loving-kindness), which has no fixed bound and overflows mere obligation. The core of obligation is negative, but true charity is without measure, which keeps him from the minimalist camp.
On the Basis of Morality, §17
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Confuciusinferable
The moral demand is maximalist: to become a junzi 君子 (person of noble character) is a lifelong, never-finished task, in which one must master oneself relentlessly. The disciple Zengzi speaks of a heavy burden and a long road, for he carries ren 仁 (humaneness) until death. Morality does not rest content with a minimum of non-harm: it calls for a continuous perfecting of the person.
Analects, VIII, 7 (the burden is heavy and the road long, for he carries humaneness until death) · Analects, XII, 1 (to master oneself and return to the rites)
Marcus Aureliusinferable
The demand is unrelenting: to stop discoursing on what the good man should be, and to be one, now, without delay or excuse. This call to an effort of every instant, in which each act engages the whole of virtue, is a moral maximalism, tempered only by the .
Meditations, V, 1 · Meditations, X, 16 · Meditations, XII, 1
Senecainferable
The ideal of the is so lofty as to be almost unattainable: it demands an effort of every instant, a never-slackening progress (prokopê) toward moral perfection. Seneca, aware of his own shortcomings, nonetheless upholds a maximalist demand for a thorough transformation of the self.
Letters to Lucilius, V and LXXV (unceasing moral progress) · On the Happy Life, XVII-XVIII (Seneca admits he is no sage)
Benthaminferable
Requiring one always to act so as to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number, counting each equally, lays on the agent a potentially very heavy demand: no private sphere escapes evaluation by utility in principle. This maximalist demand collides, however, with the legislator's realism, which knows it cannot regulate everything: the principle itself sets no a priori limit, whereas its implementation necessarily presupposes one.
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. I-IV (the greatest happiness principle applied to every action)
Kantinferable
The moral demand is high: always act from duty and not from mere conformity, subjecting all one's maxims to the universal law. Kant tempers this by distinguishing perfect duties, strict and without exception, from imperfect duties such as beneficence or the cultivation of one's talents, which leave latitude to judgment, holding back from an extreme maximalism.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, section II · Metaphysics of Morals, Doctrine of Virtue
Millinferable
Maximising the general happiness exposes one to a potentially very heavy moral demand, since any action can be weighed against the greatest good. Yet Mill tempers this maximalism: everyday conduct is governed by tried secondary rules, and he does not expect from everyone the constant motive of the universal good, only that one do no harm and contribute on occasion.
Utilitarianism, ch. 2 (the secondary rules and the motive of actions)
Argument
- Suffering and death for want of food, shelter, or care are evils: no one disputes it.
- Now if we can prevent such an evil without sacrificing anything comparable, a little money, a little comfort, we ought to do so: it is what everyone feels before . To refuse this principle is to say that a dying child counts for less than our small comforts.
- This principle knows no border: neither remoteness, nor the fact that others could help, nor the number of victims lessens the obligation; what counts is that I can act, and at what cost.
Therefore So morality demands far more than 'do no harm': as long as a great evil remains preventable at a modest cost, not acting is consenting to it. Helping the most destitute, wherever they are, is a , not a favor.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the position
- The maximalist principle, pushed to its end, never stops: as long as an evil remains preventable at a cost lesser than itself, I must give, my time, my money, my projects, up to the point where I would myself need rescuing.
- But a human life rests on attachments and projects pursued for their own sake, not to maximize the world's good. To summon them to yield at every instant to the calculus of the greater good is to tear from the agent their very integrity.
- A 'moral saint' who acted only to relieve misery would have an impoverished life, without projects of their own, almost inhuman: not an ideal, but the dissolution of the person into an endless demand.
Therefore So morality cannot demand everything: there must be a part of life that is my own, failing which duty devours the very person it claims to make good.
See the pageObjectionAttacks the reasoning
- The argument draws from an emergency case, the child drowning before me, a general duty to rescue all the world's destitute.
- But the two situations differ on what gave the first case its force: at the pond I alone can save, the need is here and now, the act one-off and its effect certain. The world's misery is permanent, the business of billions of agents, and the effect of my donation uncertain.
- What made the duty obvious, uniqueness, urgency, certainty, vanishes in the global case: to carry the same obligation over is to treat a lasting condition as a string of emergencies, and to lay on the individual what belongs to collective action.
Therefore So from the pond one cannot conclude to an unlimited individual duty: the true answer to the world's misery is a matter of justice and institutions, not each person's endless sacrifice.
See the page- PrescriptiveMoral SituationThe drowning child, the starving child
Everyone grants that we must save the child drowning before our eyes, even at the cost of ruining our clothes; but if distance makes no difference to the duty, as Singer argues, why does it not extend to everyone a donation would suffice to save?
the rescue - PrescriptiveMoralDoing and allowing
Is letting someone die when we could save them as grave as killing? If the difference dissolves, the duty not to harm swells until it covers all the evil we fail to prevent.
the omission - PrescriptiveMoralSaints and heroes
The heroic act is admired, never required: there would be a realm beyond duty. But if all the good we can do is owed, are these acts that exceed duty anything but duties we excuse ourselves from?
saints and heroes - PrescriptiveMoralA life of one's own
If we must give as long as any misery remains to be relieved, what legitimate room is left for my projects, my loved ones, my tastes? Does a morality that absorbs a whole life demand too much, or is it our comfort looking for excuses?
a whole life - PrescriptivePolitical & legalCharity or justice
If distant misery stems from unjust institutions we benefit from, giving is no longer enough: the duty would be to repair and transform the order, not to give alms. Is individual giving a duty, or the alibi of an ongoing injustice?
the global economic order - DescriptiveWhat a human being can bear
Does a demand beyond our strength breed discouragement and hypocrisy, or must the ideal exceed what we are precisely in order to pull us upward? What morality may ask depends on what human beings can give.
human nature