It was, to use a philosopher's sesquipedalian word, an act of supererogation.
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That's one reason we often raise an eyebrow at acts of conspicuous supererogation — acts that showily exceed the moral minimum.
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Minimal decency is an ethical requirement according to the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The term refers to the minimum requirement of kindness obliged by Kantian ethics; those actions which go beyond the call of duty are considered supererogation. People need not engage in supererogation in order to be responsible moral agents. The distinction between minimal decency (an ethical obligation) and supererogation helps moral agents understand and protect their own and each other's rational autonomy.
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Supererogation may be considered as performing above and beyond a normative course of duty to further benefits and functionality.
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The Methodist Articles of Religion/Doctrinal Standards of The United Methodist Church/Articles of Religion. XI. Of Works of Supererogation.
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Martin Luther's opposition of this teaching seeded the Protestant Reformation. The Church of England denied the doctrine of supererogation in the fourteenth of the Thirty-Nine Articles, which states that works of supererogation > cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety: for by them men do declare, > that they not only render unto God as much as they are bound to, but that > they do more for his sake, than of bounden duty is required: whereas Christ > saith plainly, When ye have done all that are commanded to you, say, We are > unprofitable servantsBook of Common Prayer (ECUSA)/Historical Documents of > the Church/Articles of Religion. XIV. Of Works of Supererogation. Later Protestant movements followed suit, such as in the Methodist Articles of Religion.
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Urmson and his co-editor G. J. Warnock performed an invaluable service to the development of "analytic" or "linguistic" philosophy by preparing for publication the papers of the Oxford linguistic philosopher J. L. Austin. After World War II, Urmson's book Philosophical Analysis (1956) – an overview of the development of analytic philosophy at Cambridge and Oxford universities between World War I and World War II – was influential in the post-war spread of analytic philosophy in Anglophone countries. According to the article on supererogation in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "the history of supererogation in non-religious ethical theory is very recent, starting only in 1958 with J. O. Urmson's seminal article, "Saints and Heroes."Urmson, J., 1958, "Saints and Heroes", in Essays in Moral Philosophy, A. Melden (ed.), Seattle: University of Washington Press, which "opened the contemporary discussion of supererogation (strikingly, without ever mentioning the term itself!) by challenging the traditional threefold classification of moral action: the obligatory, the permitted (or indifferent) and the prohibited.
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The debate over the contested Christian doctrine continued for the following decades. Gabriel Harvey, in his Pierce's Supererogation (1593),ed. Grosart, ii. 291. wrote: William Perkins sought to refute Scot, and was joined by the powerful James VI of Scotland in his Dæmonologie (1597), referring to the opinions of Scot as "damnable".
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In 1590, his name is affixed to the preface of a religious tract, A Brief Resolution of the Right Religion. Two years later, both Thomas Nashe (in Strange News) and Gabriel Harvey (in Pierce's Supererogation) mention him as a writer of ballads; none of his work in this vein, however, is known to have survived.
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According to the classic teaching on indulgences, the works of supererogation performed by all the saints form a treasure with God, the "treasury of merit," which the church can apply to exempt repentant sinners from the works of penitence that would otherwise be required of them to achieve full remission of the temporal punishment due to their sin.
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In the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, "works of supererogation" (also called "acts of supererogation") are those performed beyond what God requires. For example, in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul the Apostle says that while everyone is free to marry, it is better to refrain from marriage and remain celibate to better serve God. The Roman Catholic Church holds that the counsels of perfection are supererogatory acts, which specific Christians may engage in above their moral duties. Similarly, it teaches that to determine how to act, one must engage in reasonable efforts to be sure of what the right actions are; after the reasonable action, the person is in a state of invincible ignorance and guiltless of wrongdoing, but to undertake more than reasonable actions to overcome ignorance is supererogatory, and praiseworthy.
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Chute appears to have been a protégé of Gabriel Harvey.Hallett Darius Smith, Elizabethan poetry: a study in conventions, meaning, and expression, University of Mitchigen Press, 1968, p.109. Harvey refers to him in his work Pierces Supererogation, saying that Chute was an orator and a herald. He also states that Chute had participated in Francis Drake's 1589 English Armada expedition to Portugal.
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Seattle: University of Washington Press, pp. 198–216. In utilitarianism, an act can only be better because it would bring more good to a greater number, and in that case it becomes a duty, not a supererogatory act. The lack of a notion of supererogation in utilitarianism and related schools leads to the demandingness objection, arguing that these schools are too ethically demanding, requiring unreasonable acts.
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Chute supported Harvey in his literary war against Thomas Nashe. Pierces Supererogation contains two poems by Chute and letters in which he praises Harvey and lambasts Nashe. Shortly afterwards, Chute wrote to Lord Burghley, applying for the position of pursuivant of arms, describing himself as a "poor gentleman and a scholar". In 1595, Chute published Tabaco, the first English discussion of the merits of tobacco.
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After Gabriel Harvey mocked Greene's death in Four Letters, Nashe wrote Strange News (1592). Nashe attempted to apologise in the preface to Christ's Tears Over Jerusalem (1593), but the appearance of Pierce's Supererogation shortly after offended Nashe anew. He replied with Have with You to Saffron-Walden (1596), with a possibly sardonic dedication to Richard Lichfield, a barber of Cambridge. Harvey did not publish a reply, but Lichfield answered in a tract called "The Trimming of Thomas Nash," (1597).
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Article X - Of Good Works Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit. Article XI - Of Works of Supererogation Voluntary works—besides, over and above God's commandments—which they call works of supererogation, cannot be taught without arrogancy and impiety. For by them men do declare that they do not only render unto God as much as they are bound to do, but that they do more for his sake than of bounden duty is required; whereas Christ saith plainly: When you have done all that is commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants. Article XII - Of Sin After Justification Not every sin willingly committed after justification is the sin against the Holy Ghost, and unpardonable.
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After Greene's death Harvey published Foure Letters and certaine Sonnets (1592), in which he revealed the miserable details of Greene's later years. Nashe settled his personal score with the Harveys, in Strange Newes (1593). Harvey rebutted the personal charges made by Nashe in Pierce's supererogation, or a New Prayse of the Old Asse (1593). In a religious work, Christs Teares over Jerusalem (1593) Nashe made a full apology to Harvey, who however resumed the controversy in a New Letter of Notable Contents (1593).
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The book ends with Bulwer stating that he is going to stop writing and return to working as a physician. He writes: > Until now obeying the sacred impulse of the genius operating upon our > intellectual complexion, while my mind was carrying me into new things, I > executed works not of supererogation, but supplemental to the advancement of > sciences. In which I seem to have merited something from the republec of > letters (i.e. Literary public): "Of the making of many books there is no > end, and the reading of them is a weariness to the flesh" (Eccles xii.
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Supererogation (Late Latin: supererogatio "payment beyond what is needed or asked", from super "beyond" and erogare "to pay out, expend", itself from ex "out" and rogare "to ask") is the performance of more than is asked for; the action of doing more than duty requires. In ethics, an act is supererogatory if it is good but not morally required to be done. It refers to an act that is more than is necessary, when another course of action—involving less—would still be an acceptable action. It differs from a duty, which is an act wrong not to do, and from acts morally neutral.
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Barnes became involved in the pamphlet feud between Gabriel Harvey and Thomas Nashe. Barnes took the part of Harvey, who wanted to impose the Latin rules of quantity on English verse: Barnes even experimented in classical metres himself. This partisanship is sufficient to account for the abuse of Nashe, who accused him, apparently on no proof at all, of stealing a nobleman's chain at Windsor, and of other things. Prior to this literary assault Barnes had written a sonnet for Harvey's anti-Nashe pamphlet Pierces Supererogation (1593), in which he labelled Nashe a confidence trickster, a liar, a viper, a laughing stock and mere "worthless matter" who should be flattered that Harvey even deigned to insult him.
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He later added another argument: the "right to a human minimum". In his article "Parent Earth Ethics" Odera Oruka uses the metaphor of a family of six children with varying degrees of wealth and poverty to explain his argument. These six children have some things in common and each has his/her own individual talents and possessions. He made the following distinctions: Rule One: Parental Debt Principle (a.) Family Security Rule (b.) Parental Debt Rule (c.) Individual Family Survival Rule Rule Two: The Individual Luck Principle (a.) Personal Achievements Rule (b.) Personal Supererogation Rule (c.) Public Law Rule The entire system cannot be detailed within the scope of this article but, from the above outline, the main points are as follows: The Parental Debt Principle occurs prior to the Individual Luck Principle.
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"'Honour' comprises the whole complex of service and worship which the whole creation, animate and inanimate, in heaven and earth, owes to the Creator. The honour of God is injured by the withdrawal of man's service which he is due to offer."Richard Southern, Anselm and his biographer (CUP 1963) This failure constitutes a debt, weight or doom, for which man must make satisfaction, but which lies beyond his competence; only if a new man can be found who by perfect obedience can satisfy God's honour and by some work of supererogation can provide the means of paying the existing debt of his fellows, can God's original purpose be fulfilled. So Christ not only lives a sinless life, which is again his due, but also is willing to endure death for the sake of love.
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Hadrian Damman's Latin translation was dedicated to James when printed in 1600 (a manuscript copy dated 1596 also survives, National Library of Scotland MS Adv. 19.2.10). William Drummond of Hawthornden, William Alexander and Zachary Boyd are three seventeenth-century Scottish poets who knew Du Bartas’ works well; the latter two imitate his works (Sylvester's translation in Boyd's case) extensively. James had a major impact on English responses both before and after his accession to the English throne. Gabriel Harvey is one of numerous writers in London who were reading James' translation in the 1590s: when Harvey praised Du Bartas as the ‘Treasurer of Humanity and 'Ieweller of Diuinity’ and ‘a right inspired, and enravished Poet’ in the preface to Pierces Supererogation (1593) and other works, he was in part drawing on notes made in his copy of James's Essayes.
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In the magazine's founding statement Buckley wrote:Our Mission Statement, National Review Online, November 19, 1955 > The launching of a conservative weekly journal of opinion in a country > widely assumed to be a bastion of conservatism at first glance looks like a > work of supererogation, rather like publishing a royalist weekly within the > walls of Buckingham Palace. It is not that of course; if National Review is > superfluous, it is so for very different reasons: It stands athwart history, > yelling Stop, at a time when no other is inclined to do so, or to have much > patience with those who so urge it. As editors and contributors, Buckley especially sought out intellectuals who were ex-Communists or had once worked on the far Left, including Whittaker Chambers, William Schlamm, John Dos Passos, Frank Meyer and James Burnham.John P. Diggins, "Buckley's Comrades: The Ex-Communist as Conservative," Dissent July 1975, Vol. 22 Issue 4, pp.
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