See my response to Scott—I think “obligatory” might have been a distracting word choice. I’m not trying to make any claims about blame/praiseworthiness, including toward oneself for (not) acting.
The post is aimed at someone who sits down to do some moral reasoning, arrives at a conclusion that’s not demanding (eg make a small donation), and feels the pull of taking that action. But when they reach a demanding conclusion (eg make a large donation), they don’t think they should feel the same pull.
Fair enough—I think I agree with that. Something that I discuss a lot in my writing is that we clearly have strong moral reasons to do more good rather than less, but that an over-emphasis on ‘obligation’ and ‘demands’ can get in the way of people appreciating this. I think I’m basically channeling the same frustration that you have, but rather than denying that there is such a thing as ‘supererogation’, I would frame it as emphasizing that we obviously have really good reasons to do supererogatory things, and refusing to do so can even be a straightforward normative error. See, especially, What Permissibility Could Be, where I emphatically reject the “rationalist” conception of permissibility on which we have no more reason to do supererogatory acts than selfish ones.
Thanks for the links, Richard!
See my response to Scott—I think “obligatory” might have been a distracting word choice. I’m not trying to make any claims about blame/praiseworthiness, including toward oneself for (not) acting.
The post is aimed at someone who sits down to do some moral reasoning, arrives at a conclusion that’s not demanding (eg make a small donation), and feels the pull of taking that action. But when they reach a demanding conclusion (eg make a large donation), they don’t think they should feel the same pull.
Fair enough—I think I agree with that. Something that I discuss a lot in my writing is that we clearly have strong moral reasons to do more good rather than less, but that an over-emphasis on ‘obligation’ and ‘demands’ can get in the way of people appreciating this. I think I’m basically channeling the same frustration that you have, but rather than denying that there is such a thing as ‘supererogation’, I would frame it as emphasizing that we obviously have really good reasons to do supererogatory things, and refusing to do so can even be a straightforward normative error. See, especially, What Permissibility Could Be, where I emphatically reject the “rationalist” conception of permissibility on which we have no more reason to do supererogatory acts than selfish ones.