Crawl to the Ethical Wall

I think most of us believe that being wholly moral isn't particularly easy. When we look to certain people as moral paragons, and ask ourselves "could I be like her?" we tend to respond: hell no. Sure certain ethical behaviors are pretty easy, for example it is relatively easy to avoid burning down orphanages, or to avoid strangling pelicans for kicks (or strangles), but a lot of what we take to be ethical behavior isn't so easy for most of us to do. That's why we admire those with the moral glow we take to be so difficult to achieve. When we hear that Joe Schmo donates 99% of his income to charity, volunteers his time to worthy causes, doesn't consume or use animal products, and abstains from purchasing equipment made by the third world demi-slaves of Apple, we think: that's great, but not for me. We tacitly acknowledge that it is the right way to behave, but see no problem with avoiding such behavior ourselves.

I can already hear you angrily typing SUPEREROGATORY!!!! We can acknowledge that what Joe Schmo does is good, but that doesn't mean we all ought to act that way, and it doesn't mean that we are acting unethically if we don't. Also, if ought implies can, then maybe Joe can but we can't so 'Joe ought' makes sense but 'I ought' doesn't (determinism essentially). I, like many people nowadays, do believe that our behavior is constrained by psychological contingencies and physical determinations totally outside of our control; however, I also believe that most people never rub up against these constraints. We can imagine these constraints as a wall that we reach in our ethical behavior. Our goal should be to smash into this wall, preferably at breakneck speed, possibly in Tron-like vehicles. So if someone says that they can't stop eating factory farmed meat, then this means that they think they've reached the constraining wall. Now I submit that most of us are nowhere near this constraining wall, hell most of us probably can't even see it. We use these constraints as tools to rationalize our morally lazy behavior but we shouldn't because I think we have room to maneuver. I also think that our moral character should (maybe) be judged based on our proximity to the constraining wall, not based on our proximity to a perfectly moral Mary Sue or Joe Schmo (unless of course we have the same psycho-deterministic constraints). But I also believe that none of us are as constrained as we like to think, being moral is still hard, even in this slightly less hard way. If you think some apparent ethical demand is too demanding, you damn well better be molesting that wall. It is often said that the likes of Peter Singer propound a far too demanding ethical theory, and maybe this is true, but maybe our walls aren't as far from Singer's idealized wall as we like to think.