Volume 29, Issue 1, Spring 2015
Andreas Eriksen
Pages 85-101
Beyond Professional Duty
Does Supererogation Belong to the Morality of Roles?
Professionals have a role obligation to satisfy certain standards when performing their work. However, as professionals, can they perform morally praiseworthy acts that are not within the scope of duty? According to applied professional ethics, the answer is yes, whereas some theoretical accounts of supererogation deny this possibility. I examine and ultimately reject two very different theoretical accounts that deny professional supererogation. First, a recent interpretation of Aristotle uses examples from the professional context to illustrate that the moral category of supererogation is not needed to describe heroic acts. Second, David Heyd’s account of supererogation argues that the category applies to natural duties alone and not to professional as professionals. Contrary to these claims, I argue that it is not only conceptually coherent to allow for the possibility of going beyond the call of duty but also morally important for assessments of responsibility and blame in professional life.