So proponents of unanimous objections argue that moral theories, asked too much prominence, was given up for revised.
The recent debate has extended the challenge of dividing this objections in two ways.
First, by discussing all sorts of ethical theories and not only consequentialism.
So then I'll discuss constructivism, deontology, and virtue ethics.
Second, the current debate is not focussed anymore on the demands for beneficence,
but discusses a wide range of moral requirements in different areas.
For example in medical ethics regarding future generations or refugees.
So this recent expansion of the debate made, it makes it even more important to clarify the meaning and potency of the demanding subtractions.
What exactly is the difference that the objection enables us to see or make?
So here is a typical the amount in this case in which an agent has to sacrifice his own well-being in order to comply with a law requirement.
So, uh, here is the case.
I came up that somehow, uh, covers what I have in mind, but that a big opera fan is willing to sacrifice something in order to help the poor.
But he also believes that there is a limit to the sacrifice that he has to make,
despite the clarity and firmness of his belief that this limit exists.
He struggles to pinpoint where it is. Is it already excessive to ask him to sacrifice a single trip to the wrong?
After all, opera is one of his Life and Dancing Ground projects.
Or does he not reach the limit? Even if he completely stopped spending money on opera because he can watch it online for free?
Hoping for some guidance. Burnett turns to the literature that advocates demanding his objections.
He reads that compliance with a moral requirement should not make his well-being drop, quote below a certain measure.
Well, that it should not be, quote to great effect, or that his sacrifice should not be too big a reduction in the agent's good,
or that his sacrifice should not be out of proportion to the benefit.
Burnett is puzzled. How can these definitions help him to find the exact limit for him?
Rumour has that Burnett later tried to be an active pianist.
It seems that theories in favour of abandoning this objections inform us what type of limit matters, but not well, exactly.
The requirement becomes overly demanding.
In consequence, they fail to shape the agency's decisions and actions.
But since Socrates, there is a guidance constraint and norms for evaluating difficult theories according to
which ethical theories are better to the extent that they provide adequate moral guidance.
I have three claims about this. In the first part,
I argue that anything this objections fail to define over demand in the shop because
there are big that is societies susceptible in a slogan over demanding this is a heap.
In the second part, I will discuss two attempts to bypass the problem of vagueness and argue that they are not very successful.
And then the final part, I will conclude that we should embrace the vagueness and acknowledge that the objection cannot provide exact guidance,
but that they nonetheless that these objections nonetheless can be plausible and give some rough guidance.
I will propose that I will presuppose that there are plausible objections actual,
possibly because my aim is to point to problems that we face once we make the decision to endorse the objection,
and then draw some conclusions for various fields.
Let me start with a couple of proprietorial remarks.
First, I have no special concept of vagueness.
Consider the widely shared view by Grimes.
Quote. To say that an expression is vague is to say that there are cases, actual or possible,
in which one does not know whether to apply the expression or to withhold it.
Vagueness is a challenge to the classical view that all concepts cross sharp lines, so that one can always and exactly classify things.
Radius. Sharpness requirements satisfy. Concepts need to be sharp in order to be meaningful concepts at all.
According to this classical view, over demanding this needs to be sharply defined,
meaning that a compliance with a certain requirement is either over demanding for a certain agency in a given situation or it is not.
At this classical conception, however, does not apply to the objection.
There will be borderline cases in which we cannot say if the requirement is excessive or not.
My aim is to show that unanimous objections are there.
I will not provide a deeper discussion of what explains the vagueness of the expression.
I can set this aside because the major theories of vagueness all agree on a definition of vague.
The three major theories for politic, epistemic, or semantic vagueness differ only when it comes to explain why there is vagueness.
I would say something about epistemic vagueness in part two, though.
Second, I need to say what I take to be vague about the objection.
So what is the vague expression in question?
It's very important to note that the objection does not object to the managing risk in general, or to all that would stop demanding this.
However, no. Most moral theories assume that morality can all something from us demand him.
Objections concern only cases in which the demanding this is above the certain limit according to schedule.
The question is how to react when an otherwise plausible normative theory makes unusually heavy demands on of individual agents for each other,
thus demanding this objections imply a distinction between acceptable or reasonable levels of
demanding this and unacceptable or unreasonable levels which are classified as excessive,
asking too much, overly demanding, and so on. And this concept about the threshold when the over demand in this starts.
This is what I take to be very. So I will follow the classical way to show that an expression is vague.
And that is the hip paradox, which runs as follows.
One grain of sand clearly is not the heap. If we add one grain, this still does not make any.
Repeating this multiple times,
no single addition makes the difference with regard to the number of grains that we classify as a heap and the number that we do not call it.
Hence, we will end up with millions of grains, but not a heap.
So here's a first glance on what the objection would look like if we consider over demanding
this to be a he asking for the smallest possible sacrifice from an affluent agent,
say $0.01 clearly is not overly demanding.
Increasingly demanding this by asking for another cent still does not count as over demanding.
When repeating this step multiple times, it is unclear which step makes the difference between acceptable demanding this and excessive this.
We end up with demanding everything but never will be asking too much.
So final remark is that such an application of the heat paradox requires that two conditions are met.
We need an ordering of values for one dimension to size it for the practical application,
like the number of grains n, and we also need the tolerance of the allegedly big predators.
So let's have a closer look on these to at least two conditions in order to see why demanding these objections meet the first condition.
Consider the three mainstream accounts of the objection.
These three mainstream accounts say that acceptability boundedness becomes over.
Demanding a state of compliance with a lower requirement reduces the agent's
well-being below an absolute threshold T that sweet pressure will be second.
Compliance reduces the agent's wellbeing by a loss and that is to be taxed.
The loss view. And third, if compliance does not yield a benefit that is all times higher than the cost to the agent.
Let's check this relational view. All theories define open mindedness according to a greater bell aspect.
On one dimension, the level of the agent's well-being after compliance.
The magnitude of the cost or the ratio of costs and benefits.
It's important to note that the variables are part of what we find in the literature,
and not something that I have added in order to give a generalised description.
Scheffler, for instance, argues that the benefit to others should be times as great as the net loss to the agent,
but in most cases the variables are more or less hidden in phrases like below
a certain minimum to bake a reduction in the agent's good or too great about.
The variables explain the lack of guidance because without knowing G and or other,
we cannot decide if the compliance leads to something below or above T and um.
Now, Brad Hooker has claimed that the variables can be easily flushed out.
But this has not been done so far. If demanding is, objections are indeed vague.
We know why it has not been done because it cannot be done.
So he is the more important second publishing.
The heat paradox requires not only a critical value on one dimension.
For example, the number of grades and the second condition is tolerance,
meaning that there is no number n that allows the assertion and does not maybe, but n plus one does.
Right. There's another way to put this. A predicate F is quote tolerant with respect to P if there is also some positive degree of change
in respect of P insufficient ever to affect the justice with which F applies to the case.
Three aspects are important here. There is a value on a fine grained low to an incremental level.
For instance, the number of grains. And second.
There is the predicate, for example p, which needs to be of course predicate of a global or categorical level.
In fact, there are cases in which a marginal difference regarding the fine grained or local value
on a dimension cannot be said to make a difference on the global categorical level.
Calling it the equivalent. Now very important that the smallness here is decisive.
If the difference between two steps is big enough that, say, one grain of sand and five millions, then this.
Step makes the vagueness vanish.
The difference because the first step and the second step.
The 5 million brains. That also is the difference between a motive and the heat.
However, this step would not get us any closer to finding a sharp boundary because it is somewhere between 1 and 5 million,
which is not a very shallow assumption. So the tolerance becomes visible only if we manage the smallness of the steps.
So anyways, demanding this, we have all three.
Sex all three aspects.
First, consider the fine grained value, like the number of traits and demanding the speed is not only credible on a single dimension, it is also fine.
Great. As mentioned, we can increase the required sacrifice sent by said.
Second, just like the distinction between geek and models devalues objection.
Use a coarse or categorical distinction between those models of demanding is that are reasonable and those that were taken to be to high,
excessive, and therefore overly demanding.
So the relation between the fine grained steps of demanding this and the coarse distinction between acceptable and excessive demanding.
This is crucial if we cannot say that requiring a certain donation is overly demanding.
How can we say that the minimally increased donation means asking too much?
So without the ability to find the step that makes us change the application of the expression overly demanding,
we cannot provide sharply defined definition of overly managing this.
And it seems that even those who think of a demanding subtraction spot plausible cannot get exact guidance from them.
And so how can we apply the objection in various fields of practical efforts?
So this is why I now turn to two attempts to bypass the vagueness to get.
Guidance statements. The first attempt is based on a specific explanation of this, namely the epistemic becomes.
The hallmark of the epistemic explanation is to argue that some sharp boundaries exist in reality, but that we do not know that.
This is quite attractive. Recall that they.
This threatens our classical views, including white balance, by denying that shop owners exist,
and the epistemic theory of vagueness is more in line with the classical view.
By assuming that vagueness is a purely epistemic moment, it arises only from us not knowing about the existing boundaries.
So tolerance. What I have described, this tolerance is viewed by the epistemic account as a margin of error.
Epistemic vagueness regarding demanding this objection assumes that there really is an exact number of straws that breaks the camel's neck,
only that we do not know about that exact number.
Not. In what way can this theory be used to bypass the problem of vagueness,
so that we can make guiding judgements regarding elections over demanding this.
So I now draw on an argument that I found in one of the five.
There are about five German utilitarians also.
Uh, so one of that is Bad Kazan, who is here also a couple of years ago, uh, he was, uh,
part of the argument that I present now in his one in his book on YouTube, terrorism to make in a most explicit way.
I think it's at work in, in, uh, Anglophone literature as well.
But he is, uh, I draw on the most explicit, uh, account.
So here's the arguments. Um.
So this is D as it rises. And let's assume we have a sharp boundary.
But that sharp boundary is clouded by our margin of error of plus.
See. So. So and then the claim is oh well if it's okay, if it's about the case that lies here, well here then we can make clear cut.
Assumptions. So. I have two comments on this strategy.
The first one is not necessarily a criticism, but I think it's worth pointing out that where theory of epistemic vagueness has serious implications.
Epistemic vagueness is often discussed with regard to natural entities.
Uh, I take it that the existence of sharp boundaries regarding the natural world is less controversial, as in ethics.
Tom Daugherty has a very fine paper on balance, and then implausibly argues that in ethics,
epistemic vagueness implies a robust realism according to which the difference between plausible
and demanding is that ultimately modelling this would refer to a sharply defined entity,
in reality independent from us.
So adopting this strategy as adopting the epistemic account might involve some very strong ethical views that, you know, were inclined early on.
So it may be worth noting that you imply the controversial natural ethical claim.
So but that's just a remark, not necessarily a criticism.
Maybe you like probe to story this. Now to the second, more critical remark.
Let us ground the two key assumptions of this strategy, namely, that a sharp boundary exists,
and that we cannot know that because it's clouded by our margin of error.
The first fuzzy. So. Now, if that's correct, we certainly want to know where our ignorance starts and ends.
So what we need to know is. These to.
Boundaries. Only if we know about these two boundaries, the upper and lower limit of the margin of error.
Then we would be sure if we are talking about the place that lies above or below.
So the irony of this strategy is.
That epistemic vagueness is all about explaining vagueness by ignorance,
but the strategy presupposes additional knowledge about the sharp limits of the margin of error.
And I think it's not possible to have that knowledge, because there is the problem of second order,
because there is second order vagueness, because the limits of the margin of error are.
The. Societies susceptible themselves.
If we cannot know and discern where the sharp boundary between acceptable demanding is and over demanding is is,
how can we know where the margin of error stops again?
The problem remains the same if we cannot say that the level of demanding this is the limit of over demanding this,
we cannot say that the certain level of demanding is easy.
Lies outside the margin of error. But deep below, swamp lies within.
But that's what we would need to know in order to know that much lower limit is.
So. The epistemic account does not solve the problem of tolerance by interpreting it as a margin of error.
Because on closer inspection, the problem of tolerance also applies to the boundaries of the margin of error.
Then you have to make the code just checks the problem to the higher order instead of solving it.
In the words of Timothy, when announcing, quote, the difficulty of applying the higher order classifications to.
So writing series is a just the same kind as the difficulty of applying the first order classification,
which was what led us to recognise the problem with vagueness in the first place.
Thus, while all of our vagueness is a problem for all, claim to know the boundaries of the margin of error.
And this leads to an overconfidence when it comes to know whether a certain requirement is clearly above or below the margins.
So much for the first attempt. Now to the second wall.
Can intuition tell us if more requirements for a certain agent in certain situations is overly demanding or not?
But. For example, in my initial case,
we seemed to be justified in saying that we can't require Burnet to sacrifice a single trip to the opera without asking too much.
Likewise, we might say that our intuition tells us that the 1% that Peter Singer discusses in The Life You Can Say is not overly demanding.
This strategy has a big advantage, but it also has two limitations.
Let's start with the advantage intuition.
Unlike deductive forms of reasoning, use straightforward words whether the compliance with the specific more requirement is overly demanding or not.
So there's nothing wrong with deductive arguments, and they are quite helpful in many ways.
For example, one plausible drinking water guideline recommends that the level of copper in drinking water should be less than 2mg/l.
To prevent any health related problems, we test our water that we know if the test water is above or below the limit, and then we can act accordingly.
Now, if my claim about the vagueness for the objection is correct, then this kind of deductive argument is not available to us,
because the vagueness prevents us from having a premise with a specific upper limit of demand to this,
and without that, the deductive argument is not taking off.
Intuitions have the advantage that they do not need such a practice with a specific upper limit feature set up,
for example, argues that the 1% pledge is clearly not over demanding.
He says it would not require wealthy people to come remotely near to impoverishing themselves at work.
I take it that our intuition maxing this claim like the iPad, the claim that one grain of sand clearly is not a heap.
So the advantage is that claims like sales are exact enough and guiding without having to define the threshold.
To overcome this, you kind of ignore if it exists or does not exist.
You just don't have to say where it is, if it exists, and so on.
He does not have to say when impoverishment starts.
Nor does he to. Doesn't you have to define the margin of error, which was the problem with the first strategy.
So far, so good. He. Here's the boss.
My first concern is that the advantage I just described also is a disadvantage.
From the viewpoint of the objection. I'm now shifting to be respected.
So what I've done so far is from the perspective of Peter Singer.
So what I propose everybody, uh, gets 1% not overly demanding five.
Let's try also from the perspective of many of the objection.
But if we now change perspective to proponents of the objection, we would like to know where the limit is if it exists.
Exact. Peter Singer is not defined by any limit, and he doesn't have to be.
So this strategy that he, uh, proposes is no strategy in finding is not a contribution for the task of the objection to find relevant.
Making an individual claim about these alleged over demanding is not one single requirement is something
very different from defining the threshold between acceptable and excessive levels of demanding this.
The intuitions are not able to overcome perhaps my suspicion just to sidestep
or overcome the problem of tolerance because demanding this is so point great.
We would need intuitions for two neighbouring levels of demanding this,
which tell us that the lower level is acceptable and the higher over demanding this, we will need intuition.
Product. I do not know any attempt to try to do this.
I'm afraid so. That is because the smaller the steps are, the more controversial and unstable our intuition will get.
If that is correct. Intuitions, even if they can inform and digest regarding individual cases,
they cannot help us to establish a theory of the thresholds, but that is the backbone of the objection.
So now to the second limitation.
Intuition seems to work fine in cases of low demand like this.
Like, say, this 1% clutch. It's easy to see why they work well in these cases.
A set of plausible accounts of morality agree that morality can ask us to sacrifice something,
and this matches the intuitions about the low places, namely that they are not places of excessive requirements.
This simply morality is job to tell us to sacrifice this.
But what about all the cases with higher demanding lists?
Take for example the following case. So I'm trapped with white and slowly collapsing brackets.
I could say either white's live or my black.
So let me ask who first. That the person can be required to sacrifice the lack for love.
Who thinks that? No one. Who feels that this is overly demanding.
Couple of people are undecided. So of course some of you might have noticed it's pockets face.
So two interesting things about what Parkridge has to say about the case.
So his position is quote, the cost here would be too great.
And also I would be morally committed to save my life.
So here comes the interesting two aspects of profits discussion.
First, profit acknowledges the possibility of conflicting views.
He writes on some views. I also whites live rather than my mine.
Since whites loss would be much greater than mine.
Now, the other interesting thing is, he says, most of us have a different view.
Hoffman takes it to be the view of the majority without explaining.
What my geology is and how you get stuff. Empirical claim from.
Without explaining this, he claims that the majority states that requiring to say a lot for election is asking too much.
But it's important. That he discusses conflicting views.
Of course, I will not be able to solve the disagreement.
I don't even want to solve that is meant.
I just want to point out that the literature is full of cases with higher demand in this, where lots of people like Shea Carey,
Shelly Kagan and others, and so will say, well, this is how demanding is, but this is not overly demand.
So I would like to point that high demanding this is way more controversial.
So in sum, it seems that intuitions are a solution only with regard to cases of low levels of demand.
In this, they are not much help when it comes to finding the threshold.
And certainly they're much more in conflict when it comes to cases are higher than not this.
So the strategy gives us something. Especially if you are like Peter Singer model, trusting and working out the objection.
You just want to do practical laps. Then the strategy is very good.
If you would like to be interested, if you are interested in other questions, then this strategy does work so well.
So conclusions I have for you.
Well, first, we should be careful about the way we talk about demanding this objections and better not
give the impression that the problem of vagueness is not serious and come can be overcome.
We are facing absolute vagueness and not some relative vagueness that is vagueness with regards to contention.
Ignorance may be ignorance in form.
Pending research on demanding these objections or some empirical knowledge regarding the specific test.
Second, I think it would be an overreaction to argue that if the randomness objections are valid, then they should be given up.
This argument has some initial plausibility, as it takes the vagueness serious and then applies a sharpness requirement.
Accordingly, one might argue that if the ramming this objections are vague,
it is unclear what they're all about, and that they should be given enough.
I reject this view, not because I fear that the rigorous application of Vega's sharpness principle would make most of us lose our jobs.
Lack of exact guidance is a problem that, besides guidance, there are other additional criteria that might make the demanding this objection.
Look what? Why? For example, there are some implications for metaphorical debates, like the relation of morality in our personal wealth,
or more specifically, in how we weigh moral reasons against non moral reasons or the problem of super aggregation.
All of these debates can profit from drawing on the demanding is objection, even if the concept of open mindedness remains to be better.
Now to my final conclusion. Maintenance does not allow for exact guidance, but what about lowering our expectations?
The suggestion is to embrace vagueness.
Bernard Williams and Ethics and Political Philosophy famously argued that our conceptual framework should fit our ethical lives.
Which she takes to be very messy. Therefore, he concludes, ethics is likely to be a, quote, untidy business, and that implies using vague concepts.
So some might say that Williams just repeats what Aristotle says in the ethics,
namely that we should not expect more exactness in the discipline than the subject matter.
Alas, for others might interpret Williams to give a special explanation for the word vagueness, namely antiquity.
This ontic vagueness assumes that more moral reality does not have any sharp boundary, and that this should be mirrored by our concepts.
But I'm not going to decide what's the correct interpretation of Will's yet, because I would like to suggest something that was more about guidance.
So I'm going to link Williams, but didn't start with.
Constantine has pointed out that basic concepts concerns quite well in practical effects.
In paragraph 71 of his Philosophical Investigations, he rejects face view that only boundaries make up useful concepts.
Now Corbett can shine. Is it even always an advantage to replace an indistinct picture?
BioShock one. Isn't the indistinct one often exactly what we need.
Ricky compares the concept to an area and says that an area boundaries cannot be called an area at all.
This presumably means that we cannot do anything with it.
But is it senseless to say stand roughly that?
I suppose that I was standing with someone in a city square and said that, as I say it,
I do not draw any kind of boundary that perhaps point with my hand, as it were, indicating a particular spot.
So that was vintage time in this sense that demanding this objection might be useful,
namely by roughly pointing to the bank limits to our moral obligations.
But even giving this draft guidance would require lots of extra work on the this objections that has more than support.
So let's start climbing the.