Lisa Tessman, “Moral Failure: On the Impossible Demands of Morality” (Oxford UP, 2015)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Nov 1, 2015 · 1h 1m

Moral theories are often focused almost exclusively on answering the question, “What ought I do?” Typically, theories presuppose that for any particular agent under any given circumstance, there indeed is some one thing that she ought to do. And if she were indeed to do this thing, she would thereby morally succeed. But we know from experience that our moral lives involve moral dilemmas. These are cases in which it seems that moral success is not possible because every action available to us is morally wrong, even unacceptable. In such cases, morality requires what is impossible: no matter…