by Matthew Blackmon

Created on: December 20, 2009

Supererogation and the pursuit of meaning

The notion of duty is that there are a certain class of actions that one is bound to either perform or prohibit according to the moral law. An interesting corollary of this is the concept of supererogation, which works outside the realm of obligation. This concept gives the often legalistic duty-based ethics an addition of character and virtue in such a way as to enhance the pursuit of eudaimonia in the daily lives of humankind; further, the mix of supererogation and meaning in our lives cannot be avoided in a practical manner since we are presented with it in our daily lives as we are called to examine the various role models and heroes through media and community that presents the people who perform such actions. Regardless of culture, we have universally idolized people we regarded as heroes (whether saving lives or doing some type of civic service) because we are inspired by their supererogatory actions in life and we ourselves have tried to find meaning in our lives by emulating and reflecting upon their example. Supererogation is a concept that originated in the study of ethics, however, it has influences beyond ethics; Owen Flanagan (in his work The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World) identified six meaning spaces that individuals interact in when pursuing eudaimonia in his book meaning in a material world. Supererogation helps to blend several of the meaning spaces together: the ethical, spiritual, aesthetic, political, and sometimes relates to the technological. The two that link together closest in this blend of meaning spaces however are the ethical and spiritual. Supererogation links with the spiritual in the concept of transcendence-looking and going beyond self and establishing a world-view that incorporates one's relationship with something beyond self. The relationship of how we recognize ourselves with our greater world determines to what extent we are likely to engage in supererogatory actions and in turn actively pursue meaningful lives. The concept of going beyond is surprisingly present in both conceptions, supererogation is going beyond your call of duty, and transcendence is looking beyond yourself with regards to your world-view. It is because of this relationship that supererogation brings a significant aid towards finding meaning in our lives.

As stated earlier, supererogation is a concept that fits within deontological (duty-based) ethic. Such ethics describe moral decisions

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