Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T12:33:21.591Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Enemy of the Good: Supererogation and Requiring Perfection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2018

CLAIRE BENN Open the ORCID record for CLAIRE BENN [Opens in a new window]
CLAIRE BENN*
Affiliation:
The Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Van Leer Jerusalem [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Moral theories that demand that we do what is morally best leave no room for the supererogatory. One argument against such theories is that they fail to realize the value of autonomy: supererogatory acts allow for the exercise of autonomy because their omissions are not accompanied by any threats of sanctions, unlike obligatory ones. While this argument fails, I use the distinction it draws – between omissions of obligatory and supererogatory acts in terms of appropriate sanctions – to draw a parallel with psychological perfectionism. Through this parallel, I demonstrate that requiring what is morally best is in fact counter-productive. Thus, by its own lights, a theory that wants us to do what is best ought at the very least to tell us to believe that some actions are supererogatory. As the old adage goes, the best is the enemy of the good; I argue here that the supererogatory is the solution.

Type
Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 333 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 McGinn, Colin, ‘Must I Be Morally Perfect?’, Analysis 52.1 (1992), pp. 32–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 33.

2 More specifically, every act that is not morally indifferent. Some have presented arguments for why we ought to consider some actions to be beyond the realm of moral evaluation (Dorsey, Dale, ‘Amorality’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19.2 (2016), pp. 329–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar). However, there are those who are sceptical of classifying any act as morally indifferent (for arguments to this effect, see for example my ‘Over-Demandingness Objections and Supererogation’, The Limits of Moral Obligation, ed. Marcel van Ackeren and Michael Kühler (New York and London, 2016), pp. 68–83, at 73–4). For them, then, moral requirements on a maximizing theory are even more pervasive and confining.

3 The actual demandingness of a particular moral theory depends not only on whether or not it is a maximizing theory, but also on its theory of value. So, a theory that only requires that we do not harm but considers all other actions to be equally good could, it is true, avoid the problems outlined in this article. However, such a theory would rely on an implausibly course-grained theory of value. Thus, such theories are not the target of this article.

4 Clark, Michael, ‘The Meritorious and the Mandatory’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 79 (1978), pp. 23–33, at 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 For an exposition of the ‘paradox’ see Horgan, Terry and Timmons, Mark, ‘Untying a Knot from the Inside Out: Reflections on the “Paradox” of Supererogation’, Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 27.2 (2010), pp. 29–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Clark, ‘The Meritorious and the Mandatory’, p. 29.

7 In addition to Clark, there is also Raz, Joseph, ‘Permissions and Supererogation’, American Philosophical Quarterly 12.2 (1975), pp. 161–8Google Scholar; Heyd, David, Supererogation: Its Status in Ethical Theory (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.

8 For more on this, see my ‘Over-Demandingness Objections and Supererogation’.

9 There have been attempts to make room for the value of having options on a consequentialist framework by changing the axiological rankings of options, often by having dual rankings. Jussi Suikkanen, for example, gives an argument similar to the argument from autonomy and argues that the solution is to reformulate consequentialism such that it is sensitive to the value of having options (Suikkanen, Jussi, ‘Consequentialist Options’, Utilitas 26.3 (2014), pp. 276–302CrossRefGoogle Scholar). On his theory, room is left for supererogatory action because the actions in the set of available options have a range of values.

10 Heyd, Supererogation, p. 166.

11 Heyd, Supererogation, p. 175.

12 Dancy, Jonathan, ‘Supererogation and Moral Realism’, Human Agency, ed. Dancy, Jonathan, Moravcsik, J. M. E. and Taylor, C. C. W. (Stanford, 1988), pp. 170–88, at 183Google Scholar.

13 This example comes from Von Fintel, Kai and Iatridou, Sabine, ‘How to Say Ought in Foreign: The Composition of Weak Necessity Modals’, Time and Morality, ed. Guéron, J. and Lecarme, J. (Dordrecht, 2008), pp. 115–41, at 116Google Scholar.

14 Heyd argues for such a view. So too does Mary Forrester, who defines obligations in terms of sanctions, claiming that an act is obligatory if and only if some sanction is appropriate for failures to perform them (Forrester, Mary, ‘Some Remarks on Obligation, Permission, and Supererogation’, Ethics 85.3 (1975), pp. 219–26, at 220CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

15 Of course, this does not mean that all de facto sanctions and punishments indicate true obligations. The mere fact that a bully, or a community, demand we perform a certain action on pain of some sanction does not make that action morally obligatory. The sanctions must be justified.

16 Of course, some sanctions might be appropriate due to a negative agent assessment (due to the reason that they omitted the supererogatory action) or because of the act that the agent performed instead of the supererogatory act. Nevertheless, it is not the case that sanctions are legitimate for a non-performance of a supererogatory act qua supererogatory act.

17 Heyd, Supererogation, p. 175.

18 Heyd, Supererogation, p. 115.

19 Heyd, Supererogation, p. 9.

20 Heyd, Supererogation, p. 39.

21 Heyd, Supererogation, pp. 148 and 180.

22 Heyd, Supererogation, p. 180.

23 This principle was discussed by Harry Frankfurt in terms of moral responsibility (Frankfurt, Harry G., ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’, The Journal of Philosophy 66.23 (1969), pp. 829–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 829). He rejects it (see his discussion of the case of Black and Jones, in Frankfurt, ‘Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility’, p. 835). I apply it here to the case of voluntariness and reject it for similar reasons.

24 Olsaretti, Serena, ‘Debate: The Concept of Voluntariness – A Reply’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 16.1 (2008), pp. 112–21Google Scholar. In response to Ben Colburn's point about well-informedness (Colburn, Ben, ‘Debate: The Concept of Voluntariness’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 16.1 (2008), pp. 101–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 102), Olsaretti accepts that factual beliefs about the availability of options can indeed make a difference to voluntariness, but re-emphasizes that mistaken evaluative judgements (such as the mistaken belief that not living on caviar would reduce you below an acceptable standard of well-being) do not make a difference to voluntariness. This is reflected in the definition of non-voluntariness given here. For simplicity, in the rest of this article, I use ‘a lack of acceptable alternatives’ to refer to ‘a lack of (objectively) acceptable options that the agent (subjectively) believes she faces’.

25 Olsaretti, Serena, Liberty, Dersert and the Market (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 138–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 This distinction can be found in Kant, Immanuel, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, ed. and trans. Gregor, Mary (Cambridge, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On his view, being motivated by the sanctions that are made appropriate by a failure to do our duty is in fact to act heteronomously. Christine Korsgaard gives the example of paying your taxes ‘because you are afraid of being punished if you do not. This is heteronomy [as opposed to autonomy]: your interest in avoiding punishment binds you to the law’ (Korsgaard, Christine, Creating the Kingdom of Ends (Cambridge, 1996), p. 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar). However, we do not need to buy into a Kantian account of duty or autonomy to see that there are two ways we could be motivated to do our duty.

27 Thus, my argument here can be seen as compatible with – or even supplementary to – the search for a theoretical justification of supererogation.

28 Frost, Randy O. et al., ‘The Dimensions of Perfectionism’, Cognitive Therapy and Research 14.5 (1990), pp. 449–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 450.

29 Horney, Karen, Neurosis and Human Growth (New York, 1950)Google Scholar.

30 Obsessive Compulsive Cognitions Working Group, ‘Cognitive Assessment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder’, Behaviour Research and Therapy 35.7 (1997), pp. 667–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Flett, Gordon L. and Hewitt, Paul L., ‘Positive versus Negative Perfectionism in Psychopathology: A Comment on Slade and Owens's Dual Process Model’, Behavior Modification 30.4 (2006), pp. 472–95CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, at 481. See also Flett, Gordon L. et al., ‘Components of Perfectionism and Procrastination in College Students’, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 20.2 (1992), pp. 85–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Flett, Gordon L. et al., ‘Perfectionism, Self-Actualization, and Personal Adjustment’, Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 6 (1991), pp. 147–60Google Scholar.

32 Shafran, Roz, Cooper, Zafra and Fairburn, Christopher G., ‘Clinical Perfectionism: A Cognitive-Behavioural Analysis’, Behaviour Research and Therapy 40 (2002), pp. 773–91, at 778CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

33 Shafran, Cooper and Fairburn, ‘Clinical Perfectionism’, p. 782. For further evidence of this see Antony, M. M. and Swinson, R. P., When Perfect Isn't Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism (Oakland, CA, 1998)Google Scholar; Burns, David D., ‘The Perfectionist's Script for Self-Defeat’, Psychology Today (1980), pp. 34–51Google Scholar; Hamachek, Don E., ‘Psychodynamics of Normal and Neurotic Perfectionism’, Psychology 15 (1978), pp. 27–33Google Scholar; Hollender, M. H., ‘Perfectionism’, Comprehensive Psychiatry 6 (1965), pp. 94–103CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

34 Shafran, Cooper and Fairburn, ‘Clinical Perfectionism’, p. 779.

35 Frost, Randy O. et al., ‘A Comparison of Two Measures of Perfectionism’, Personality and Individual Differences 14.1 (1993), pp. 119–26, at 125CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Shafran, Cooper and Fairburn, ‘Clinical Perfectionism’, p. 782.

37 Flett and Hewitt, ‘Positive versus Negative Perfectionism’, p. 485.

38 Shafran, Cooper and Fairburn, ‘Clinical Perfectionism’, p. 778.

39 Shafran, Cooper and Fairburn, ‘Clinical Perfectionism’, p. 778.

40 Abramowitz, Jonathan S. and Jacoby, Ryan J., ‘Scrupulosity: A Cognitive-Behavioral Analysis and Implications for Treatment’, Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders 3.2 (2014), pp. 140–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 140.

41 Abramowitz, Jonathan S. et al., ‘Religious Obsessions and Compulsions in a Non-Clinical Sample: The Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity (PIOS)’, Behaviour Research and Therapy 40.7 (2002), pp. 825–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 826. See also Abramowitz and Jacoby, ‘Scrupulosity’, p. 145.

42 Ciarrocchi, J. A., The Doubting Disease: Help for Scrupulosity and Religious Compulsions (Mahwah, NJ, 1995), p. 36Google Scholar. Cited in Miller, Chris H. and Hedges, Dawson W., ‘Scrupulosity Disorder: An Overview and Introductory Analysis’, Journal of Anxiety Disorders 22.6 (2008), pp. 1042–58CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, at 1046.

43 Stocker, Michael, ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’, The Journal of Philosophy 73.14 (1976), pp. 453–66, at 454CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 Stocker, ‘The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories’, pp. 453–4.

45 There are cases of heroic actions – such as those individuals in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon who sheltered Jews from persecution during the Second World War – where people did not see their actions as supererogatory. This might be taken as evidence for the motivational power of moral requirements. However, it should be noted that in none of these cases were the individuals motivated by a duty to do what is morally best. Their actions are better understood as coming from a sense of ‘moral necessity’: it felt impossible for them to do other than they did (for a defence of this claim and for a discussion of moral necessity in relation to supererogation, see Fruh, Kyle, ‘Practical Necessity and Moral Heroism’, in Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, ed. Shoemaker, David, vol. 4 (Oxford, 2017), 28–49Google Scholar; Archer, Alfred and Ridge, Michael, ‘The Heroism Paradox: Another Paradox of Supererogation’, Philosophical Studies 172.6 (2015), pp. 1575–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Nevertheless, my argument is compatible with there being some cases in which believing that heroic action is obligatory brings about a better outcome than if it were believed to be supererogatory. Being required to do something may well motivate some people on some occasions. However, the evidence presented here demonstrates that being required to do what is morally best on all occasions is in general counter-productive. I thank the two anonymous reviewers for this journal for encouraging me to discuss these cases.

46 Something that should worry those in the Effective Altruism movement.

47 Clark articulates a suspicion similar to this (Clark, Michael, ‘On Wanting to Be Morally Perfect’, Analysis 53.1 (1993), pp. 54–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 55). I give evidence that supports this suspicion.

48 This distinction between positive and negative perfectionism has its origins in Hamachek's seminal work in which he distinguishes two related but separable clusters of features ambiguously subsumed under the term ‘perfectionism’ (Hamachek, ‘Psychodynamics of Normal and Neurotic Perfectionism’). Since then, many other theorists have also accepted the distinction between these two types of perfectionism, though there is little agreement on nomenclature. I follow Terry-Short et al., in talking about positive and negative perfectionism (‘Positive and Negative Perfectionism’, Personality and Individual Differences 18.5 (1995), pp. 663–8) characterized by what Stoeber and Otto call perfectionistic striving and perfectionistic concern (‘Positive Conceptions of Perfectionism: Approaches, Evidence, Challenges’, Personality and Social Psychology Review 10.4 (2006), pp. 295–319). In other places, the following terms have been used: ‘normal and neurotic perfectionism’ (Hamachek, ‘Psychodynamics of Normal and Neurotic Perfectionism’); ‘positive striving and maladaptive evaluative concern’ (Frost et al., ‘A Comparison of Two Measures of Perfectionism’); ‘active and passive perfectionism’ (Adkins, Karen Kittler and Parker, Wayne, ‘Perfectionism and Suicidal Preoccupation’, Journal of Personality 64.2 (1996), pp. 529–43CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed); ‘adaptive and maladaptive perfectionism’ (Rice, K. G., Ashby, J. S. and Slaney, R. B., ‘Self-Esteem as a Mediator between Perfectionism and Depression: A Structural Equation Analysis’, Journal of Counseling Psychology 45 (1998), pp. 304–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar); ‘functional and dysfunctional perfectionism’ (Rhéaume, Josée et al., ‘Functional and Dysfunctional Perfectionists: Are They Different on Compulsive-Like Behaviors?’, Behaviour Research and Therapy 38 (2000), pp. 119–28CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed); ‘healthy and unhealthy perfectionism’ (Stumpf, H. and Parker, W. D., ‘A Hierarchical Structural Analysis of Perfectionism and its Relation to Other Personality Characteristics’, Personality and Individual Differences 28 (2000), pp. 837–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar); ‘personal standards and evaluative concerns perfectionism’ (Blankstein, Kirk R. and Dunkley, David M., ‘Evaluative Concerns, Self-Critical, and Personal Standards Perfectionism: A Structural Equation Modeling Strategy’, in Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment, ed. Flett, Gordon L. and Hewitt, Paul L. (Washington, DC, 2002), pp. 285–315CrossRefGoogle Scholar); and ‘conscientious and self-evaluative perfectionism’ (Hill, R. W. et al., ‘A New Measure of Perfectionism: The Perfectionism Inventory’, Journal of Personality Assessment 82 (2004), pp. 80–91CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed).

49 See Stoeber and Otto's comprehensive literature review of the studies that distinguish positive and negative perfectionism (‘Positive Conceptions of Perfectionism’). Frost et al. found the same through the employment of the Positive Affect-Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) detailed by Watson et al. in ‘Development and Validation of Brief Measures of Positive Affect: The PANAS Scales’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 54 (1988), pp. 1063–70. Frost et al. found that perfectionistic striving was correlated with ‘feelings of energy, enthusiasm, and activity’, whereas perfectionistic concern was correlated with ‘feelings of anger, fear, guilt, etc.’ (Frost et al., ‘A Comparison of Two Measures of Perfectionism’, p. 121).

50 Also shown in Dunkley, David M. et al., ‘Personal Standards and Evaluative Concerns Dimensions of “Clinical” Perfectionism: A Reply to Shafran et al. (2002, 2003) and Hewitt et al. (2003)’, Behaviour Research and Therapy 44 (2006), pp. 63–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 79. We can see from this that obsessions that lead to great achievements in the arts, sciences or sports are more likely a product of conscientiousness rather than taking oneself to be required to do so.

51 Stoeber and Otto, ‘Positive Conceptions of Perfectionism’, p. 312.

52 Hamachek, ‘Psychodynamics of Normal and Neurotic Perfectionism’, p. 28.

53 Flett and Hewitt, ‘Positive versus Negative Perfectionism’, p. 479. See also Hewitt, Paul L. and Flett, Gordon L., ‘Perfectionism and Stress in Psychopathology’, Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment, ed. Flett, Gordon L. and Hewitt, Paul L. (Washington, DC, 2002), pp. 255–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 This explains why we do not need to assume that no action is obligatory in order to avoid counter-productivity. I leave aside the issue of where exactly we ought to draw the line between what is obligatory and what is supererogatory.

55 See the work of Skinner, B. F., the father of Operant Conditioning, for example his ‘Superstition in the Pigeon’, Journal of Experimental Psychology 38 (1948), pp. 168–72CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. For an interesting discussion of this issue in relation to perfectionism, see Slade, P. D. and Owens, R. G., ‘A Dual Process Model of Perfectionism Based on Reinforcement Theory’, Behavior Modification 22 (1998), pp. 372–90CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

56 Some have rejected the claim that praise and gratitude are part of the very definition of supererogation (for example, Archer, Alfred, ‘Are Acts of Supererogation Always Praiseworthy?’, Theoria 82.3 (2016), pp. 238–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar); nevertheless, they are very often appropriate and as such can positively enforce such behaviour.

57 Urmson, J. O., ‘Saints and Heroes’, in Moral Concepts, ed. Feinberg, Joel (Oxford, 1969), pp. 60–73Google Scholar, at 70.

58 Urmson, ‘Saints and Heroes’, p. 70.

59 Though I concede that for some people this anxiety might become unsustainable and thus lead to a refusal to accept the demands of a moral theory that requires them to do the best and thus ‘a disregard’ for that theory.

60 The exact source of this quotation is unknown though uncontroversially attributed to William Bennett, an American politician, political theorist and prolific writer and speaker on ethics, politics and education.

61 For further discussion, see Sidgwick, Henry, Methods of Ethics, ed. Bennett, Jonathan, 7th edn. (London, 1907)Google Scholar.

62 Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons (Oxford, 1987), p. 43Google Scholar, emphasis in the original. These two questions arise originally in Williams, Bernard, ‘A Critique of Utilitarianism’, Utilitarianism: For and Against, ed. Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, Bernard (Cambridge, 1973), pp. 75–150Google Scholar, at 135. Another way of putting this distinction is between a theory as a criterion of rightness and an action-guiding theory.

63 Parfit, Reasons and Persons, p. 40.

64 Sen, A. K. and Williams, Bernard, Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge, 1982), p. 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice, rev. edn. (Cambridge, MA, 1999), pp. 113n., 115 and 397–8Google Scholar.

66 Some might worry that the actions that we consider supererogatory would lack their moral value if they were not in fact supererogatory. However, this would only be a worry if we believed that the value of supererogatory actions came from their being optional, rather than from (for example) the morally good nature of the consequences that they bring about (or intend to bring about); they would have this latter value even if they were in fact required but believed to be optional. There are reasons to be sceptical about the claim that the value of supererogatory actions arises from their optionality. For more on this, see Dancy, ‘Supererogation and Moral Realism’; Kagan, Shelly, ‘Does Consequentialism Demand Too Much? Recent Work on the Limits of Obligation’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 13.3 (1984), pp. 239–54Google Scholar.

67 I thank an anonymous reviewer for this journal for encouraging me to make this point more clearly.

68 Clark, ‘The Meritorious and the Mandatory’, p. 28. See also Attfield, Robin, ‘Supererogation and Double Standards’, Mind 88.352 (1979), pp. 481–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 482–3.

69 Heyd, Supererogation, p. 183.

70 I thank Rae Langton, Hallvard Lillehammer, Georgie Statham, Tristan Hore, Christine Fears, Shyane Siriwardena, Christina Cameron, Silvia Jonas, Sharon Berry and Olla Solomyak for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I also thank the participants of the Hebrew University Faculty of Philosophy Colloquium as well as the fellows at The Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study. Finally, I am extremely grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for the journal whose comments were encouraging and constructive.