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Obligation, Supererogation and Self-sacrifice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Russell A. Jacobs
Affiliation:
Washburn University

Extract

Can an action cease to be required of a moral agent solely because it comes too costly? Can self-sacrifice or risk of self-sacrifice serve as a limit on our moral obligations? Two recent articles in Philosophy, concerned primarily with the possibility of supererogatory action, suggest very different answers to these questions.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1987

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References

1 Pybus, Elizabeth M., ‘Saints and Heroes’, Philosophy 57, No. 220 (1982), 193–199.Google Scholar

2 McGoldrick, Patricia M., ‘Saints and Heroes: A Plea for the Supererogatory’, Philosophy 59, No. 230 (1984), 523–528.Google Scholar

3 Pybus, , ‘Saints and Heroes’, 194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Ibid., 197.

5 Ibid., 199.

6 McGoldrick, ‘Saints and Heroes: A Plea for the Supererogatory’, 517.

7 Ibid., 526.

8 Ibid., 524.

9 A more detailed account of the effect of high cost on moral obligation can be found in Jacobs, Russell A., ‘The Price of Duty’, Southern Journal of Philosophy XVII, No. 4 (1979), 443–454.Google Scholar