Abstract
Philosophers are by now familiar with “the” paradox of supererogation. This paradox arises out of the idea that it can never be permissible to do something morally inferior to another available option, yet acts of supererogation seem to presuppose this. This paradox is not our topic in this paper. We mention it only to set it to one side and explain our subtitle. In this paper we introduce and explore another paradox of supererogation, one which also deserves serious philosophical attention. People who perform paradigmatic acts of supererogation very often claim and believe that their acts were obligatory. Plausibly, this is simply a mistake insofar as the actions really are “above and beyond the call of duty,” as common sense would have it. The fact that moral heroes tend to view their actions in this apparently mistaken way is puzzling in itself, and we might learn something interesting about the moral psychology of such individuals if we could explain this tendency. However, this puzzling aspect of the moral psychology of moral heroes is also the chief ingredient in a deeper puzzle, one perhaps more worthy of the title “paradox.” In this paper we present and try to resolve this paradox. The paradox arises when we combine our initial observation about the moral psychology of moral heroes with three plausible claims about how these cases compare with one in which the agent realizes her act is “above and beyond.” The first of these three additional claims is that the agent who mistakenly claims that the act is obligatory is no less virtuous than someone who performs such an act whilst correctly judging it to be obligatory. The second is that the agent who makes such a mistake would display more moral wisdom if she judged the act to be supererogatory. The third is that there is no other relevant difference between the two agents. These three claims, together with a plausible principle about the way in which the virtues work, give rise to a paradox. We consider several ways in which this paradox might be resolved. We argue that the most plausible resolution is to reject the claim that there is no other relevant difference between the two agents. More specifically, we argue that a relevant difference is that the agent who makes this mistake does so because of the depth of their commitment to certain moral values, and that this is itself an important moral virtue: moral depth.
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Notes
Gomez-Granger (2008, p. 11).
Boghani (2012).
Other examples of people who deny the seemingly obvious supererogatory status of their acts include ‘Subway Hero’ Wesley Autrey who risked his life to save the life of a man who had fallen onto the track of the Subway. After the incident Autrey told the New York Times, “I don’t feel like I did something spectacular; I just saw someone who needed help. I did what I felt was right,” (Buckley 2007). Similarly, William Harvey Carney, awarded a Medal of Honour for acts of bravery in battle, declared afterwards, “Boys, I only did my duty,” (Mulderink 2012, p. 110).
Thanks to an anonymous referee for bringing Driver’s discussion of the phenomenon to our attention.
Thanks to Guy Fletcher and Lee John Whittington for raising this objection.
See Driver (2003, p. 374), Montmarque ( 1986, p. 488) and Zagzebski (1996, pp. 166–167). Of course, what we have said here is quiet on the way in which these virtues promote these different ends and the three accounts mentioned here provide different answers to that question. For our purposes though, we take it to be sufficient to point out that moral virtues promote moral ends and epistemic virtues promote epistemic ends.
See Doris (2002).
For one of the authors’ views of how we should understand modesty as a virtue, see Ridge (2000). A related issue is whether it is only acts performed with altruistic intent that can be classed as acts of supererogation. This view is defended by David Heyd (1982, p.115). For a discussion and rejection of this view see Archer (2013).
Thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting this response.
In fact, it isn’t clear that this would make these acts obligatory. A number of philosophers have argued that it is possible for an act of supererogation to be inline with the agents self interest. See Kawall (2003), Ferry (2013, p. 579) and Horgan and Timmons (2010, p. 54). For one of the author’s argument against the claim that supererogation always involves sacrifice see Archer (Manuscript)
Thanks to audiences at The 2013 University of Edinburgh Ethics Fest and The 2013 Normativity of Law Workshop at The University of Glasgow.
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Archer, A., Ridge, M. The heroism paradox: another paradox of supererogation. Philos Stud 172, 1575–1592 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0365-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-014-0365-1