¹ Urmson, J. O., ‘Saints and Heroes’, Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed. Melden, A. (Seattle, 1958), pp. 198–216Google Scholar, at 202–3.

² Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), p. 117Google Scholar.

³ But for Sacrifice may not seem like an element in an analysis of the supererogatory, but rather a simple first-order truth of extension of this concept. I am neutral on these interpretations. Suffice it to say, any attempt to accommodate the traditional view must accommodate But for Sacrifice.

⁴ See, for instance, Horgan, Terry and Timmons, Mark, ‘Untying a Knot from the Inside Out: Reflections on the “Paradox” of Supererogation’, Social Philosophy and Policy 27 (2010), pp. 29–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 47–8. Thanks to Doug Portmore for calling my attention to this issue.

⁵ See Horgan and Timmons, ‘Untying’, pp. 50–9.

⁶ See, for instance, Heyd, David, Supererogation: Its Status in Ethical Theory (Cambridge, 1982Google Scholar).

⁷ This problem is well known. See e.g. Horgan and Timmons, ‘Untying’, pp. 36–8. See also Portmore, Douglas, ‘Are Moral Reasons Morally Overriding?’, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (2008), pp. 369–88, esp. pp. 378–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Dreier, James, ‘Why Ethical Satisficing Makes Sense and Rational Satisficing Doesn't’, Satisficing and Maximizing: Moral Theorists on Practical Reason, ed. Byron, M. (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 131–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 148.

⁹ Dreier, ‘Satisficing’, p. 142.

¹⁰ Dreier, ‘Satisficing’, p. 149.

¹¹ See Postow, B. C., ‘Supererogation Again’, Journal of Value Inquiry 39 (2005), pp. 245–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Incidentally, this very problem fells many of the views discussed by Vessel, J. P. in ‘Supererogation for Utilitarianism’, American Philosophical Quarterly 47 (2010), pp. 199–219Google Scholar. Each view there discussed does allow for the possibility of a range of morally permissible acts, but cannot deliver the claim that the supererogatory act in question is particularly morally special in comparison to others, because per se moral factors justify both the supererogatory and the merely erogatory action.

¹² Raz, Joseph, Practical Reason and Norms, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1990), p. 94Google Scholar.

¹³ Gert, Joshua, Brute Rationality (Cambridge, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴ Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for asking me to address this ambiguity.

¹⁵ Portmore, ‘Override’, pp. 372, 375 n. 12.

¹⁶ One could, perhaps, adopt a form of particularism and claim that further features of the case (such as the fact that the sacrifice-creating act is an instance of beneficence rather than an instance of non-maleficence) might defeat or disable the exclusionary permission (or, in Portmore's language, justifying reason). (See, for instance, Dancy, Jonathan, Ethics without Principles (Oxford, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 3.) I don't have any per se beef with particularism. But such a move seems unavailable in this case. It would appear that all of the relevant facts of the case are accounted for in the favouring/disfavouring considerations, rather than in the enabling/disabling conditions of the case. In particular, the only relevant potential disabler of the exclusionary permission, in Stan's case, is the fact that to gain this prudential advantage, he would have to act in a maleficent way towards Jerry. But this is clearly a disfavourer – which is itself not strong enough to override justification to save ten, and which in turn is not strong enough to override justification to follow through on one's prudential interest in a new car – not a disabler.

¹⁷ See Crisp, Roger, Reasons and the Good (Oxford, 2007)Google Scholar, ch. 1; Foot, Philippa, ‘Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives’, Virtues and Vices (Oxford, 1978), pp. 1–18Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Thanks to an anonymous reviewer.

¹⁹ See, for instance, Dreier, ‘Satisficing’, p. 149.

²⁰ A helpful introduction to the relationship between morality and practical reasons is offered by Brink, David, ‘Kantian Rationalism: Inescapability, Authority, and Supremacy’, Ethics and Practical Reason, ed. Cullity, G. and Gaut, B. (Oxford, 1997), pp. 255–92Google Scholar.

²¹ Though there may be many additional possibilities, my preferred way to guarantee Permission in light of a denial of Supremacy would be to adapt Gert's distinction between rational requiring strength and rational justifying strength. One can accept Permission if one accepts that the prudential reason to ψ can, at best, rationally justify, but cannot rationally require ψ -ing. In other words, non-moral reasons lack rational requiring strength, but maintain rational justifying strength. On this view, one will have rational permission to perform a morally suboptimal act if the prudential reason to do so is of sufficient comparative weight to the moral reason to avoid the morally suboptimal act. Supremacy, on this view, fails: I can be rationally justified in acting in a morally suboptimal way (depending, of course, on the weight of the non-moral reasons involved). Nevertheless, because non-moral reasons cannot require a person to behave in a morally suboptimal way, acting in a morally better way is always permitted, satisfying Permission.

One complication: sometimes non-moral reasons can rationally require. If, for instance, morality is indifferent between ϕ-ing and ψ -ing and one has stronger prudential reason to ψ, some might hold that it is irrational (given this prudential reason) to ϕ. Such a verdict, however, does not require a radical revision. One might say that though non-moral reasons have rational requiring strength, the rational requiring strength of moral reasons lexically dominates, or trumps, the rational requiring strength of non-moral reasons. This entails that when morality is not indifferent between ϕ and ψ, non-moral reasons cannot require one or the other. But in a case of moral indifference, given that there is equal moral rational requiring reason to ϕ rather than ψ, the comparatively insignificant non-moral rational requiring reason can tip the balance.

²² Subject to any further conditions one might wish to place on the category of the supererogatory, explored in section VIII.3.

²³ Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn. (Indianapolis, 1981 [1907]), pp. 507–9Google Scholar.

²⁴ For a more in-depth argument to this effect, see Dorsey, Dale, ‘Weak Anti-Rationalism and the Demands of Morality’, Noûs 46 (2012), pp. 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ I argue for the claims in this section in much greater detail in Dorsey, ‘Weak Anti-Rationalism’.

²⁶ See Dorsey, ‘Weak Anti-Rationalism’; Dorsey, ‘Against the Supremacy of Morality’, MS.

²⁷ Thanks to an anonymous reviewer.

²⁸ Heyd, Supererogation, p. 137. For a contrary view, see Mellema, Gregory, Beyond the Call of Duty: Supererogation, Obligation, and Offence (Albany, 1991)Google Scholar, ch. 2.

²⁹ Consider, for instance, Kawall, Jason, ‘Virtue Theory, Ideal Observers, and the Supererogatory’, Philosophical Studies 146 (2009), pp. 179–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁰ Hurley, Paul, Beyond Consequentialism (Oxford, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dorsey, ‘Weak Anti-Rationalism’.

³¹ Many thanks are due to Doug Portmore, who offered extensive comments on this article on two separate occasions. I would also like to thank Derek Baker, Jack Bricke, Ann Cudd, Ben Eggleston, Howard Nye, Matt Talbert, various participants at the 2010 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, as well as a very helpful audience at St Andrews University.