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There are several issues which may be considered to pose problems for moral theories that fall under the general heading of ‘epistemic demandingness’. These problems may obtain when a moral theory requires that agents go through a particular epistemic procedure or accept certain beliefs. I shall briefly discuss two of these, suggesting that they need not be considered at length here.

Firstly, we may consider a moral theory which is extremely cognitively

32_{In Chappell’s analysis of Williams’s integrity objection, she notes that R.M. Hare}

and Ted Honderich are among writers who have fallen victim to this particular mistake (Chappell, 2007, p.256, footnote 3).

demanding to actually live by.33 A moral theory may be mentally strenuous to actually adopt, if for example it requires a large amount of calculation to discover what one ought to do (or may do, or may not do), taking so much energy that we would have to spend all our time calculating and perhaps still not be able to reach the appropriate verdicts. Mill mentions opponents of his who make this type of objection, who claim “there is not time, previous to action, for calculating and weighing the effects of any line of conduct on the general happiness” (1861, II,24). Mill does intend his theory to be practicable, so defends on those grounds, claiming that over the course of time we have had time to understand what acts promote happiness. Whether or not we agree is immaterial to the question at hand, as the discussion here is about the correctness of moral theories, not of how they may best be implemented. The issue Mill had in mind only acts as an objection to the claim that we can use the moral theory at hand in our day-to-day lives.

Scheffler also responds to this criticism, considering the accusation some- times levelled against utilitarianism, that “utilitarian agents must always be monitoring their circumstances to make sure that no major opportunity” to promote the good slips by without their notice (1992, p.36). Utilitarians may respond to this in several ways, such as “appealing to the distinction between the utilitarian account of right action and the utilitarian account of optimal deliberation” (1992, p.37), which may differ. We could accept that a moral theory may be correct, but it would be better either to live as though it was not, or adopt a simplified decision procedure by which we may approximate it for practical purposes. Even act utilitarians often recommend thinking in terms of rules, because doing so will ensure more widespread understanding and/or result in better consequences (e.g. Singer and de Lazari-Radek 2010, p.55).

With this type of thought in mind, we can form two distinct objections:

1. Thatthere is nodecision procedure that could be appropriately action- guiding, i.e. that any calculation that could point towards right actions would require a greater more evidence and/or more computational capacity than we possess.

2. That there is some correct decision procedure the theory would en-

33_{Braddock notes that this is one interpretation of what could be meant by the claim}

dorse, but that procedure is too demanding.

In the vein of the first type of manoeuvre, James Lenman considers the problem of foreseeing distant consequences. Not only, it seems, is the fu- ture we would bring about by specific actionsuncertain, but we are actually

clueless about the long-term effects. This raises the difficulty that a con- sequentialist about a theory of the good could not simply suggest that a different decision procedure would promote that good, as we are not in a position to even make reasonable predictions (2000, p.349). To illustrate this, Lenman considers the fictional example of Richard, who lived over two thousand years ago. Richard was a bandit, who raided towns and killed the inhabitants. In one such town, he left alive a woman called Angie. Angie, however, happened to be a distant ancestor of Hitler, so, it seems Richard’s non-killing of Angie becomes a terrible wrong from a consequentialist po- sition. Particularly with actions that determine whether someone lives or dies, our actions are obviously ‘identity-affecting’ – they change which per- sons live in the future. When these are considered, our actions clearly have massive causal ramifications.

If our actions have massive causal ramifications, which we are completely unable to predict, it is difficult to see how we would be able to properly evaluate the moral significance of any action (on a consequentialist picture). If that is the case, it is difficult for a consequentialist to then suggest any suitable decision procedure which is likely to result in the best (or even good) consequences. The difficulty for the consequentialist then becomes apparent, that in order to be in a good position to think their actions are good, they must perform what seems to be an impossible deliberative process.

This type of objection, from what Lenman calls the Epistemic Argument, highlights difficulties agents may have in arriving at an epistemic position that would allow them to promote the good. While there are questions that consequentialists must face here, it should be noted that these do not concern how demanding the theory is. Lenman’s complaint is that consequentialism is incompatible with a decision procedure that can identify right actions (or even gesture towards better actions) rather than how demanding those actions might be.

For this reason, this is not really a problem of demandingness. It does not contend that the theory makes demands which are too hard, but rather

that we can not know what demands it would make.34

Now the second problem, that making decisions the way that a theory would recommend, even acknowledging that this might not require thinking in terms of the theory itself, might require more cerebral effort than we think is appropriate. If we consider this type of objection, however, it simply seems like a version of TDO given in section 1.1.1, but where what is demanded is going through a type of thought process.

The problems discussed in this subsection, thus pose either no real prob- lem in terms of demandingness, or are easily subsumed under a more stan- dard analysis.

1.2

Different Objections and Different Types of