SilentCal comments on Does utilitarianism "require" extreme self sacrifice? If not why do people commonly say it does? - Less Wrong

7 Post author: Princess_Stargirl 09 December 2014 08:32AM

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Comment author: SilentCal 12 December 2014 08:12:17PM 0 points [-]

The word may have fallen out of favor, but I think the concept of "good, but not required" is alive and well in almost all folk morality. It's troublesome for (non-divine-command) philosophical approaches because you have to justify the line between 'obligation' and 'supererogation' somehow. I suspect the concept might sort of map onto a contractarian approach by defining 'obligatory' as 'society should sanction you for not doing it' and 'supererogatory' as 'good but not obligatory', though that raises as many questions as it answers.