This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warerton.

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W.w. dot philosophy bites.com. Putting your life at risk to save a stranger

isn't something that we think of as morally obligatory.

But this sort of heroic act is usually

morally praise worthy, even though optional.

Elizabeth Harmon suggests that there's

another class of actions, which we don't have to perform that we really

should do, which sounds paradoxical.

Liz Harmon, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Thank you so much for having me. We're talking today about moral heroes and

your claim that at least sometimes we should behave like moral heroes. What is a

moral hero? I'm interested in the idea that sometimes there's

something that you don't have to do, that morality doesn't require of you and yet all things considered you should do it. So my

thought is that even when we're within the realm of the morally permissible

and we're choosing among options

that are all morally permissible.

Still, your reasons might support one action

over another, and this can happen when one of your options is a heroic

option. So sometimes I think you should do something heroic. That's the

phenomenon that I want to focus on.

philosophers talk about super-irogatory actions, which are actions that go above and beyond

...