Heroes, saints, and ordinary morality / Andrew Michael Flescher.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Flescher, Andrew Michael, 1969-

Series:

Moral traditions series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Duty.

Supererogation.

Moral development.

Religious ethics.

Physical Description:

viii, 344 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Georgetown University Press, [2003]

Summary:

Most of us are content to see ourselves as ordinary people -- unique in ways, talented in others, but still among the ranks of ordinary mortals. Andrew Flescher probes our contented state by asking important questions: How should "ordinary" people respond when others need help, whether the situation is a crisis or something less? Do we have a responsibility, an obligation, to go that extra mile, to act above and beyond the call of duty? Or should we leave the braver responses to those who are somehow different than we are: better somehow, "heroes," or "saints?"

Traditional approaches to ethics have suggested there is a sharp distinction between ordinary people and those called heroes and saints; between duties and acts of supererogation (going beyond the expected). Flescher seeks to undo this distinction by looking at the lives and actions of certain historical figures -- Holocaust rescuers, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, among others -- who appear to be extraordinary but were, in fact, ordinary people. Heroes, Saints, & Ordinary Morality shifts the way we regard ourselves in relationship to those we respect from afar -- it asks us not only to admire but to emulate as well -- further, it challenges us to actively seek after the acquisition of virtue as seen in the lives of heroes and saints, to learn from them, a dynamic aspect of ethical behavior that goes beyond the mere avoidance of wrongdoing.

Andrew Flescher sets a stage where we need to think and act, and lead lives of self-examination -- even if that should sometimes provoke discomfort. If we strive to emulate those we admire, we allow ourselves to grow morally and spiritually, and to develop a deeper altruistic sense of self -- a state wherein we will respond as the heroes of our own lives, and therefore in the lives of others, when times and circumstance demand that of us.

Contents:

Supererogation, optional morality, and the importance of

J.O. Urmson and David Heyd in the history of ethics

The advent of the concept of supererogation in contemporary ethics

Urmson's heroes and saints

From Urmson to Heyd

The standard view under critical scrutiny

Urmson and Heyd contested

A duty to go beyond the call of duty?

Ordinary human heroes

The "hero" as a type

Heroic representations

Human heroes

Characterizing heroes within a moral framework

Suffering saints

Eccentrics or exemplars?

Following in the footsteps of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Dorothy Day

Saints and the "ethics of excess"

Saints and supererogation

Moral development, obligation, and supererogation

The thesis of moral development

Aristotle and the grounds for the aretaic meta-duty

Psychological realism and the thesis of moral development

Citicisms and responses

Human striving and creative justice

The thesis of moral development and the religious thought of Abraham Heschel and Paul Tillich.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0878401377

OCLC:

51804935