Moral Heroism and the Requirement Claim

Southwest Philosophy Review 30 (1):93-104 (2014)
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Abstract

Acts of moral heroism are often described by heroes as having been in some sense or another required. Here I elaborate two rival strategies for accounting for what I call the requirement claim. The first, originating with J.O. Urmson, attempts to explain away the phenomenon. The second and more popular among moralists is to treat the requirement claim as a moment of moral insight and to make sense of it in terms of moral duty. I argue that both of these strategies are flawed, in that both fail as an account of the phenomenon in question and are independently problematic. I propose a third, alternative account of the requirement claim based on the concept of practical necessity, which, I argue, avoids the pitfalls of the other views.

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Kyle Fruh
Duke Kunshan University

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Supererogation.Alfred Archer - 2018 - Philosophy Compass 13 (3):e12476.

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