"Campbellian heroism", perhaps. Though strictly speaking a Campbellian hero doesn't have to be a conventional hero -- the Thousand Faces/Hero's Journey pattern is more about growing into your potential than about saving people or defeating a specific Big Bad -- and both seem to be indicated here.
As I think I've said before, the specific construction of heroism that MoR is using seems to inherit a lot from Fate/stay night, and more specifically from the "Fate" and parts of the "Unlimited Blade Works" routes. The concept we're pointing to usually gets translated there as "superhero" or "hero of justice", but I'm not sure what the Japanese is, and in any case I've no idea if Nasu was using a conventional phrase or if he's using a specialization of a more general word the same way we are.
Edit: New thread posted here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 86. The previous thread has long passed 500 comments.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: