In my “Promising and Supererogation” I argue that one cannot fulfill promises to perform supererogatory actions (such as “I hereby promise to perform one supererogatory action every month”). In a response to my paper, David Heyd argues that there is an alternative solution to the problem I raise. While I agree with much that Heyd says about the examples he discusses, his proposed solution involves a crucial alteration of the problem; his proposed solution does not solve the problem I present.

In his classical article, ‘Saints and Heroes’, James Urmson single-handedly revived the idea of supererogation from it astonishingly long post-Reformation slumber. During the first two decades after its publication, Urmson's challenge was taken up almost exclusively by either utilitarians or deontologists of some sort. On the face of it, neither classical utilitarianism nor Kant's categorical imperative makes room for action which is better than the maximizing requirement, on the one hand, or beyond the requirement of duty, on the other. Nevertheless, (...) both utilitarians and Kantians, as well as deontic logicians, offered more flexible and sophisticated versions of their respective theories which could accommodate supererogatory action. In my 1982 book on supererogation I tried to address the question whether virtue ethics could capture that new category of actions which are praiseworthy though not strictly required. But the focus of my discussion was mostly Aristotle and accordingly more interpretive in nature. However, that was just before the tremendous surge of interest in virtue ethics and the vast literature debating the merits of agent-based vs. action-based approaches in moral theory. It turned out that fitting supererogation into virtue-based moral theory proved to be a more difficult task than doing so in consequentialist and deontological theories. Some argued that supererogation could nevertheless be accounted for in aretaic terms; others held that it could not and that this fact attested to either a theoretical weakness – even if not a refutation – of virtue-based ethics, or to the incoherence of the concept of supererogation. (shrink)

Supererogatory acts, those which are praiseworthy but not obligatory, have become a significant topic in contemporary moral philosophy, primarily because morally supererogatory acts have proven difficult to reconcile with other important aspects of normative ethics. However, despite the similarities between ethics and epistemology, epistemic supererogation has received very little attention. In this paper, I aim to further the discussion of supererogation by arguing for the existence of epistemically supererogatory acts and considering the potential implications of their existence. First, I offer (...) a brief account of moral supererogation and how morally supererogatory acts generate a strong intuition that a similar phenomenon should exist in epistemology. Afterward, I argue for the existence of epistemically supererogatory acts by examining five cases where an epistemic activity appears to be epistemically supererogatory. Epistemic supererogation appears to provide the best explanation for our considered judgments about the individuals’ behavior in these different cases. Finally, I consider how epistemic supererogation might impact the contemporary study of epistemology, particularly with regard to how we appraise certain epistemic duties. (shrink)

There has been some debate as to whether or not it is possible to keep a promise, and thus fulfil a duty, to supererogate. In this paper, I argue, in agreement with Jason Kawall, that such promises cannot be kept. However, I disagree with Kawall’s diagnosis of the problem and provide an alternative account. In the first section, I examine the debate between Kawall and David Heyd, who rejects Kawall’s claim that promises to supererogate cannot be kept. I disagree with (...) Heyd’s argument, as it fails to get to the heart of the problem Kawall articulates. Kawall’s argument however fails to make clear the problem with promising to supererogate because his discussion relies on the plausibility of the following claim: that supererogatory actions cannot also fulfil obligations. I argue that this view is mistaken because there are clear examples of supererogatory actions that also fulfil obligations. In the final section, I give my alternative account of the problem, identifying exactly what is wrong with fulfilling a duty, and thus keeping a promise, to supererogate. My diagnosis emphasises the importance of identifying non-supererogatory actions when it comes to understanding the way in which supererogatory actions go above and beyond the call of duty. (shrink)