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The Supererogatory and How Not To Accommodate It: A Reply to Dorsey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2015

ALFRED ARCHER
ALFRED ARCHER*
Affiliation:
University of Tilburgatmarcher@gmail.com
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Abstract

It is plausible to think that there exist acts of supererogation (acts that are morally optional and morally better than the minimum that morality demands). It also seems plausible that there is a close connection between what we are morally required to do and what it would be morally good to do. Despite being independently plausible these two claims are hard to reconcile. My aim in this article will be to respond to a recent solution to this puzzle proposed by Dale Dorsey. Dorsey's solution to this problem is to posit a new account of supererogation. I will argue that Dorsey's account fails to succeed in achieving what an account of supererogation is supposed to achieve.

Type
Debate
Information
Utilitas , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 2016 , pp. 179 - 188
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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References

1 As named by Horgan, Terence and Timmons, Mark, ‘Untying a Knot from the Inside Out: Reflections on the “Paradox” of Supererogation’, Social Philosophy and Policy 27 (2010), pp. 29–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Heyd calls this ‘The puzzle of the good–ought tie-up’ in Heyd, DavidSupererogation: Its Status In Ethical Theory (Cambridge, 1982), p. 4Google Scholar. Chisholm and Sosa call this ‘the problem of supererogation’ in Chisholm, Roderick M. and Sosa, Ernest, ‘Intrinsic Preferability and The Problem of Supererogation’, Synthese 16 (1966), pp. 321–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Dorsey, Dale ‘The Supererogatory, and How to Accommodate It’, Utilitas 25 (2013), pp. 355–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 This is how Dorsey characterizes this part of the traditional view of supererogation. Dorsey, ‘The Supererogatory’, p. 356.

4 This is slightly different from the way that Dorsey formulates the traditional view but fits with how he introduces the puzzle. Dorsey, ‘The Supererogatory’, p. 358.

5 As named by Heyd, Supererogation, p. 4. Though Dorsey does not mention this principle by name he endorses it in the following: ‘In any collection of potential actions a person might perform, it seems right to say that this person ought to perform the action that is supported by the strongest balance of moral reasons’ (Dorsey, ‘The Supererogatory’ p. 359).

6 Dorsey, ‘The Supererogatory’, p. 371.

7 Dorsey, ‘The Supererogatory’, p. 369.

8 We might think that there is more that Dorsey could say about the nature of rational requirements. In particular, we might wonder whether it is the case that it is impermissible to violate a rational requirement. While Dorsey is not explicit on this point it seems reasonable to think that for him violating a rational requirement would be impermissible from the all-things-considered normative point of view, just as violating a legal requirement would be impermissible from the legal point of view. Thanks to an anonymous referee for asking me to consider this issue.

9 See Dorsey, ‘The Supererogatory’, pp. 365–9 and pp. 379-81.

10 Urmson, J. O., ‘Saints and Heroes’, Moral Concepts, ed. Feinberg, Joel (Oxford, 1969), pp. 60–73Google Scholar.

11 Urmson, ‘Saints and Heroes’, p. 63.

12 Urmson, ‘Saints and Heroes’, p. 63.

13 Stuart Mill, John, Utilitarianism, ed. Sher, George (Indianapolis, 2001), p. 49Google Scholar.

14 Darwall, Stephen, The Second Person Standpoint (Cambridge, MA, 2006), p. 96Google Scholar.

15 Urmson, ‘Saints and Heroes’, p. 64.

16 Darwall, Stephen, ‘Bipolar Obligation’, in Darwall, Stephen, Morality, Authority, and Law: Essays in Second-Personal Ethics I (Oxford, 2013), pp. 20–40, at 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other advocates of this view include Gibbard, Allan, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 42Google Scholar, and Skorupski, John, Ethical Explorations (Oxford, 1999), p.29Google Scholar.

17 We might think that we could instead divide the deontic categories into the required, the forbidden and the optional. This would capture the full range of deontic options without creating the need for a fourth category. However, this range of deontic options would leave us unable to distinguish between acts that are optional because they are morally indifferent and those that are optional because they go beyond what is required. Of course we might think that this is perfectly acceptable. However, for the purposes of this article I will assume that we should want a way of distinguishing between these two ways in which an act can be morally optional. Conversely, we might think that the fourfold division does not go far enough and that we need to make room for further deontic categories. In fact there have been several attempts in recent years to show the need to expand further the range of categories. See, for example, Driver, Julia, ‘The Suberogatory’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 70 (1990), pp. 286–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Cohen, Shlomo, ‘Forced Supererogation’, European Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming)Google Scholar. Again, considering these issues would take me too far afield, though see Liberto Cohen, Haillie Rose, ‘Denying the Suberogatory’, Philosophia 40 (2012), pp. 395–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a response to Driver's argument and Alfred Archer, ‘Forcing Cohen to Abandon Forced Supererogation’, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (2014) for a response to Cohen's argument. Thanks to an anonymous referee for pushing me to consider these issues.

18 Dorsey, Dale, ‘How Not to Argue Against Consequentialism’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 90 (2015), pp. 20–48CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

19 In fact, Dorsey has made clear in comments on an early draft of this article that this is his favoured response.

20 Thanks to Dale Dorsey, Elinor Mason, Mike Ridge and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on early drafts of this article.