Abstract
This chapter considers the relation between supererogation and duties (also here referred to as obligations) from a nonconsequentialist point of view. It first considers whether supererogation may sometimes take precedence over positive and negative duties and how this relates to personal costs (including efforts) required to perform one’s duty. It then considers how acquiescence to having large costs imposed on one (even permissibly) can be supererogatory. Finally, it considers how what are usually duties can become supererogatory and how what is usually supererogatory can become a duty. The relation between these topics and the trolley problem, the so-called ‘all or nothing problem,’ and the issue of abortion are examined.
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Notes
- 1.
Some (e.g., Mark Timmons and Terry Horgan) conceive of supererogatory acts as only those done from a morally worthwhile motive or intention and deserving praise. (See their “Untying A Knot From the Inside Out: Reflections on the “Paradox of Supererogation,” Social Philosophy & Policy 2010, 29–63.) In my example, there is a morally worthwhile intention to save someone else and I think the act is supererogatory but the motive (or ultimate intention) for which it is done (only to frighten one’s parent) makes the act not worthy of praise.
- 2.
Joshua Gert uses the example of moral supererogation to discuss reasons in general that justify but do not require. See, for example, his “Practical Rationality, Morality, and Purely Justificatory Reasons,” American Philosophical Quarterly 37, 227–243.
- 3.
I first discussed the issues raised in Sect. 1 in my “Supererogation and Obligation,” Journal of Philosophy 82(3), 1985: 118–138. A revised version appears in my Morality, Mortality, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
- 4.
Judith Thomson distinguished between violation and permissible infringement. See her The Realm of Rights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990).
- 5.
Joe Horton claims this in his “The All or Nothing Problem” Journal of Philosophy 114(2), 2017: 94–104.
- 6.
See Horton 2017 and Tina Rulli “Conditional Obligations,” Social Theory and Practice 46 (2), 2020, 365–90. Also see Theron Pummer’s discussion in his The Rules of Rescue: Cost, Distance, and Effective Altruism, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).
- 7.
Horton’s own argument for a duty to make a large sacrifice in virtue of one’s willingness to make it (absent any other justifying reason for not making it) is part of his solution to what he calls “the all or nothing problem” considered in Sect. 4 (2).
- 8.
In Sect. 4 we will consider another way in which what is ordinarily supererogatory could become a duty.
- 9.
Horgan and Timmons call cases where supererogation does not involve a “prima facie” duty to aid that is overridden by the cost of aiding “unqualified” supererogation since there is no justification such as great costs needed for not seeking the greater good.
- 10.
Note that “permissible priority” (“may take precedence over”) is not the same as simple priority (“must take precedence over”).
- 11.
By contrast, Daniel Muñoz in his “Three Paradoxes of Supererogation” (Noûs 55 (3), 2021: 699–716) claims, “I have a prerogative to Do Nothing rather than Save 1, because saving the life is more harmful to me; but I don’t have any such prerogative to Do Nothing rather than Keep Promise, since the harm to me is the same either way.” However, I believe (and used cases in Kamm 1985 to show) that I lack the prerogative not to keep the promise even when the harm to me is greater to keep the promise than to do nothing. Munoz ultimately comes to accept such a view. He also claims (p. 208) that “if two options are equally harmful to me, I have no harm-based prerogative to pick one over the other.” This suggests that the choice must be driven by the goodness of the outcome. But suppose I would lose a leg in either saving a life or doing my duty that does less good. I think I could still permissibly perform the duty rather than save the life in part because I would suffer a large harm and I could refuse to suffer it for what is not my duty. A harm-based reason could be about what the harm is for. For a case involving such a choice between types of supererogation see the Monet Case discussed in Sect. 3 (2).
- 12.
This point made in Kamm 1985 seems structurally (though not substantively) similar to the point Joshua Gert makes in his “Requiring and Justifying: Two Dimensions of Normative Strength,” Erkenntnis, July 2003: achieving a goal that can justify but not require a personal sacrifice may permissibly take precedence over a requirement of practical rationality not to make a certain sacrifice contrary to self-interest. See also his “Practical Rationality, Morality, and Purely Justificatory Reasons”.
- 13.
See his On What Matters, Volume 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017) and my discussion of it in “Parfit on the Irrelevance of Deontological Distinctions” in Mark Timmons (ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics Volume 10 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
- 14.
In Judith Jarvis Thomson, “Turning the Trolley,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 36(4), 2008: 359–374.
- 15.
Note that it could also be supererogatory for him to turn the trolley away when the effort to do so itself would seriously harm him.
- 16.
Though in personal remarks he referred to people who would give up their life for five strangers as “crazies” which seems inconsistent with his official position.
- 17.
Thomson does not discuss cases like Business Client, so I am not sure if she would judge it impermissible to fail in the positive duty to one’s client in order to save the five when failing results in a loss to the client that would be supererogatory for him to donate to save five strangers and to which he does not consent.
- 18.
I discussed Sending Back Cases in Intricate Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), The Trolley Problem Mysteries (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), and Rights and Their Limits: In Theory, Cases, and Pandemics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022).
- 19.
Put in Hohlfeldian terms, the permissibility of turning the trolley is somewhat like having a liberty right to impose on someone without his having a correlative duty not to interfere with the exercise of that liberty, showing that the bystander and the five do not have a claim right to impose on the one person that would give him a duty not to resist.
- 20.
See her “A Defense of Abortion,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 1(1), 1971: 47–66 and “Rights and Deaths,” Philosophy & Public Affairs, 2(2), 1973: 146–159.
- 21.
My Creation and Abortion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) emphasizes the elimination of only the benefit of impermissible imposition which Thomson had not specifically employed as an explanation of her cases. It also considers how abortion might differ morally from the Violinist Case (and variations on it) because pregnancy involves the creation of a person.
- 22.
The difference between not donating aid and acquiescing in imposition may also come to the fore when the benefit of imposition on one person is someone else (i) retaining what he would ordinarily rightfully have as opposed to (ii) getting something he would not ordinarily rightfully have. This distinction between (i) and (ii) could imply that directly taking away a device that is necessary to save someone’s life (the device not being rightfully his) could be morally different from directly killing someone who is being saved by the device (thinking of his life as something he would ordinarily rightfully have) even though without the device he would die.
- 23.
This section is based on my “Duties that Become Supererogatory or Forbidden?” in Principles and Persons: The Legacy of Derek Parfit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021).
- 24.
In some ways this is like the Bystander Three Option Case in Thomson 2008 with the private lifeguard substituted for a bystander. Peter Unger discussed a case like Thomson’s in his Living High and Letting Die (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
- 25.
Thomson reaches a different conclusion about this sort of case because she thinks it is impermissible to save five people when the only way to do this is by turning the trolley that will kill one other unconsenting person. Some think it is permissible to turn the trolley when it is the only way to save the five but deny it is permissible to do so when it is possible to substitute oneself. They face a version of the so-called “all or nothing” problem that we will discuss in Sect. 4, namely that to avoid doing what they think is the wrong of not substituting oneself, it is better to permissibly let the five die.
- 26.
Horton discusses a case like this (in his “The All or Nothing Problem”) except that the initial effort needed to save one person is supererogatory rather than dutiful. We will discuss it further in Sect. 4. Horton's case is unlike my first Lifeguard Saving Both Case in which the cost to save everyone is greater than the cost to save either the client or the hundred on its own.
- 27.
Shelly Kagan discussed a case like this (in his The Limits of Morality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) involving a parrot instead of a Monet.
- 28.
Jeff McMahan draws a moral distinction between these types of cases by contrast to what I have suggested. See his “Doing Good and Doing the Best,” in The Ethics of Giving: Philosophers’ Perspectives on Philanthropy ed. P. Woodruff (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
- 29.
Introduced in Morality, Mortality, Volume 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
- 30.
The duty is conditional only in the sense that one comes to be in a situation that would ordinarily give one a duty because one has done something else permissible. It is not conditional in the way that having a duty to kill gently is conditional on being about to kill. In this case, the conditional duty would ordinarily be contrary to duty and what puts one in the position of having the duty is also ordinarily contrary to duty.
- 31.
See Morality, Mortality, Volume 2.
- 32.
Described in Morality, Mortality, Volume 2.
- 33.
In Horton 2017.
- 34.
Due to Horton 2017 and discussed in Pummer 2022.
- 35.
This could not be said about the version of the Lifeguard Save Both Case in Sect. 3 (B) where there is a duty to save one’s client and not doing so would be impermissible.
- 36.
I discuss both these types of cases (as well as an Extended Principle of Secondary Permissibility (EPSP)) in Intricate Ethics.
- 37.
Horton’s own solution to the Saving All Case and the all or nothing problem gives rise to his view (considered in Sect. 1) that if one is willing to make what would otherwise be a supererogatory effort, one has a duty to make it. This view implies that refraining from saving anyone is impermissible if one is willing to make the effort, and this explains why it is morally right to save one rather than refrain from saving anyone even if one ought to save two. However, if it is not true that willingness to make the large effort makes it a duty rather than supererogatory to do so, this explanation of the Saving All Case will fail. Also, given Horton’s explanation: (i) might one toss a coin on whether to fail in one’s duty to the first person or fail in one’s duty to the second person, a duty that would only come to exist conditional on doing what is needed to save the first person? (ii) might not failing in one’s duty to save the first person be outweighed by the foreseen failure to perform many duties one would come to have if there are many additional people (not just one) who one could but won’t save at no additional cost.
- 38.
This chapter is dedicated in memory of Lily Safra who supported my work and many philanthropic projects. I thank David Heyd for his comments on an earlier version of this chapter.
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Kamm, F.M. (2023). Supererogation and Duty. In: Heyd, D. (eds) Handbook of Supererogation. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3633-5_3
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