Doing well enough: Toward a logic for common-sense morality (Q1922826)

The author attempts to define, in the context of deontic logic, concepts such as ``supererogatory'' and ``indifferent''. The central definition in the paper is: ``Something is supererogatory if it holds in one of \(i\)'s acceptable alternatives and there is a point among these alternatives where from there down, it uniformly fails to hold.'' Unfortunately, this definition does not seem to capture the intuitive concept. This can be seen from examples in which some sentence \(p\) is true in all the best worlds and also in all the unacceptable worlds, but false in all worlds that are acceptable but not best. Then \(p\) will be supererogatory according to the proposed definition, which seems strange in concrete examples. For a simplified such example, let there be only the following three alternatives, listed in decreasing degree of acceptability and such that only the last one is unacceptable: 1. I visit my aunt after telling her that I will come. 2. I do not visit my aunt. 3. I come unannounced to visit my aunt. According to the author's definition, it is in this case supererogatory for me to visit my aunt. Intuitively, it is not visiting but announced visiting that should be supererogatory.