Nagel's Response
According to Thomas Nagel, consequentialism need not be too demanding since it is possible to distinguish between 'agent-neutral' reasons and 'agent-relative' reasons. An agent-neutral reason is a reason that applies to anybody, regardless of their particular circumstances: thus, anybody has a reason to want any pain to stop, regardless of whether it is his. An agent relative reason is a reason that applies only to particular individuals: thus, not everybody has a reason to want me to study every day, however, I have a reason to want to study every day, namely, because I want to pass my exams.
Since my projects depend on my interests and desires, and since my interests and desires don't seem to generate agent-neutral reasons, then the reasons in question must be agent-relative. Having established that there are genuine agent-relative reasons, Nagel concludes that it must sometimes be possible to pursue our own interests instead of the overall good, since agent-relative reasons will sometimes outweigh agent-neutral reasons. This appears both to account for the fact that there are moral requirements and the fact that we are sometimes allowed to promote our own projects.
Read more about this topic: Demandingness Objection
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