v13n1: Larue and Endörfer on MFA’s Demandingness
Posted: January 27, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment

“Can the MFA Be Rescued From the Overdemandingness Objection?” by Louis Larue and Richard Endörfer
AN INVITED RESPONSE TO AN INVITED RESPONSE TO Espen Dyrnes Stabell (2024), “An Excusability Principle For Firms Under the Market Failures Approach,” Bus Ethics J Rev 11(4): 22–27, https://doi.org/10.12747/j1k04
In Endörfer and Larue (2024), we argue that Heath’s Market Failures Approach makes excessive epistemic demands on market participants in imperfectly competitive markets. Stabell attempts to salvage the MFA by supplementing it with an excusability principle. He claims that managers may be excused when they cannot uphold their duty, either because of epistemic uncertainty or because of problems posed by the Theorem of Second Best. Here, we respond that Stabell’s excusability principle cannot save the MFA from the overdemandingness objection: when the MFA is overdemanding, agents cannot have an obligation to act upon its recommendations. However, if there is no obligation, there is no need for an excuse.
To download the full PDF, click here: Larue and Endörfer on MFA’s Demandingness
Louis Larue is a Marie Curie Postdoc at Aalborg University (Denmark) and an invited lecturer in Philosophy at UCLouvain (Belgium). Richard Endörfer is a visiting Postdoc at the Ethics Institute at Utrecht University (Netherlands).


