Supererogation

Moral actions were once thought to be of only three types: required, forbidden, or permissible (i.e., neither required nor forbidden). Required acts are good to do, forbidden acts are bad to do, and permissible acts are morally neutral. This trinity seemed well-established until J.O. Urmson challenged this classification system by arguing for the existence of a fourth category of acts.¹ Urmson posited actions performed by saints and heroes as paradigm examples of supererogatory acts—those which are morally praiseworthy but not morally required. Gregory Mellema later posited a more specific definition: a moral act may be described as supererogatory if (1) performing the act fulfills no moral duty, (2) performing the act is morally praiseworthy, and (3) omitting the act is not morally blameworthy.²

Urmson had many critics, but as debate has progressed, the existence of supererogatory acts has become more difficult to deny. Roughly thirty years after Urmson’s “Saints and Heroes” was published, Susan Hale described the new fourfold categorization of moral acts (required, forbidden, permissible, and supererogatory) as “near dogma.”³ Perhaps the reason for this trend is that certain paradigm examples of supererogatory actions seem impossible to properly describe under the tripartite classification system. Consider a poignant example offered by M.W. Jackson:

“In January of 1982 an Air Florida plane crashed into the Potomac River. In the ensuing crisis, a man in the water passed the life-line on to the others four times. When the rescue helicopter came back a fifth time, he had gone under never to be seen again. He was as anonymous as he was selfless.”⁴

It would be ludicrous to claim that this action was morally forbidden: we react to this man’s sacrifice by commending his action, not condemning it. Simultaneously, it would be absurd to claim that this person was morally required to make such a sacrifice. We do not condemn the others involved in the crash for not passing their life-lines along to others. Moreover, the plane crash was an unfortunate accident, and this man deserved to survive as much as anyone else in the water. We are left to conclude that the action must be considered morally permissible, but unlike standard (merely) permissible actions in the tripartite scheme, this action has moral worth. Hence, a fourth category of moral actions seems necessary to fill this conceptual gap.

1. J.O. Urmson, “Saints and Heroes,” in Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed. A.I. Melden (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1958), 198-216.
2. Gregory Mellema, Beyond the Call of Duty: Supererogation, Obligation, and Offence (Albany: SUNY Press, 1991), 3.
3. Susan Hale, “Against Supererogation,” American Philosophical Quarterly 28, no. 4 (1991): 273.
4. M. W. Jackson, “Above and Beyond the Call of Duty,” Journal of Social Philosophy 19, no. 2 (1988): 3.