A St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, recorded at St Cross College, Oxford in February 2024. Demandingness objections have become a stock argument in ethics claiming that single moral demands or entire moral theories must be given up or altered if they ask too much of agents. But can we clearly distinguish an acceptable level of demandingness from one that is too high? I argue that demandingness objections inevitably fail to make that distinction without borderline cases because they are sorites-susceptible. First, I show that the heap paradox applies to demandingness objections and the expression “overdemanding” because two conditions are met. There is an ordering of values on one dimension decisive for the expression’s application: the cost to the agent. Also, the expression “overdemanding” is tolerant, because the difference between two neighbouring levels of demandingness is so small that it does not allow us to say that this is the difference between an acceptable level of demandingness and critical overdemandingness. Second, I discuss attempts to overcome or bypass the vagueness of demandingness objections. I will argue that these strategies are not very promising and that we should rather embrace the vagueness.
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A St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, recorded at St Cross College, Oxford in February 2024. Demandingness objections have become a stock argument in ethics claiming that single moral demands or entire moral theories must be given up or altered if they ask too much of agents. But can we clearly distinguish an acceptable level of demandingness from one that is too high? I argue that demandingness objections inevitably fail to make that distinction without borderline cases because they are sorites-susceptible. First, I show that the heap paradox applies to demandingness objections and the expression “overdemanding” because two conditions are met. There is an ordering of values on one dimension decisive for the expression’s application: the cost to the agent. Also, the expression “overdemanding” is tolerant, because the difference between two neighbouring levels of demandingness is so small that it does not allow us to say that this is the difference between an acceptable level of demandingness and critical overdemandingness. Second, I discuss attempts to overcome or bypass the vagueness of demandingness objections. I will argue that these strategies are not very promising and that we should rather embrace the vagueness.
Against Legalizing Female 'Circumcision' of Minors
Uehiro Oxford Institute
1 hour 7 minutes
3 years ago
Against Legalizing Female 'Circumcision' of Minors
In this St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, Dr Brian Earp argues that all medically unnecessary genital cutting of non-consenting persons should be opposed on moral and legal grounds. Defenders of male circumcision increasingly argue that female ‘circumcision’ (ritual cutting of the clitoral hood or labia) should be legally allowed in Western liberal democracies even when non-consensual. In a recent article, Richard Shweder (2021) gives perhaps the most persuasive articulation of this argument to have so far appeared in the literature. In my own work, I argue that no person should be subjected to medically unnecessary genital cutting of any kind without their own informed consent, regardless of the sex characteristics with which they were born or the religious or cultural background of their parents. Professor Shweder and I agree that Western law and policy on child genital cutting is currently beset with cultural, religious, and sex-based double-standards. We disagree about what should be done about this. In this talk, I argue that ‘legalizing’ childhood female genital cutting so as to bring it into line with current treatment of childhood male genital cutting is not an acceptable solution to these problems. Instead, all medically unnecessary genital cutting of non-consenting persons should be opposed equally on moral and legal grounds and discouraged by all appropriate means. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/
Uehiro Oxford Institute
A St Cross Special Ethics Seminar, recorded at St Cross College, Oxford in February 2024. Demandingness objections have become a stock argument in ethics claiming that single moral demands or entire moral theories must be given up or altered if they ask too much of agents. But can we clearly distinguish an acceptable level of demandingness from one that is too high? I argue that demandingness objections inevitably fail to make that distinction without borderline cases because they are sorites-susceptible. First, I show that the heap paradox applies to demandingness objections and the expression “overdemanding” because two conditions are met. There is an ordering of values on one dimension decisive for the expression’s application: the cost to the agent. Also, the expression “overdemanding” is tolerant, because the difference between two neighbouring levels of demandingness is so small that it does not allow us to say that this is the difference between an acceptable level of demandingness and critical overdemandingness. Second, I discuss attempts to overcome or bypass the vagueness of demandingness objections. I will argue that these strategies are not very promising and that we should rather embrace the vagueness.
