When Enough Is Not Enough: Satisficing and Moral Efficiency

Abstract

Classical utilitarianism is faced with the objection from overdemandingness. In response, some utilitarians have tried to modify classical utilitarianism to constrain the demands it makes. According to this satisficing strategy, it is permissible to do what is good enough instead of doing only what is best. In this article, I evaluate extant versions of this satisficing strategy, find them lacking, and propose an alternative. Instead of positing either a threshold of utility (like Michael Slote suggests) or of burdensomeness (like Richard Chappell suggests), we should see to it that the ratio between both is sufficiently high.