Table Of ContentEDITIONS SR
Volume 14
Sharing Without
Reckoning
Imperfect Right and
the Norms of
Reciprocity
Millard Schumaker
Published for the Canadian Corporation for Studies in
Religion/Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses
by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
1992
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Schumaker, Millard, 1936-
Sharing without reckoning
(Editions SR ; 14)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-88920-208-7
1. Duty. 2. Supererogation. 3. Abuse of rights.
I. Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion.
II. Title. III. Series.
BJ1451.S34 1992 291.5 C92-093174-X
1992 Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion/
Corporation Canadienne des Sciences Religieuses
Cover design by Connolly Design Inc., after Botticelli's Primavera
Printed in Canada
Sharing Without Reckoning: Imperfect Right and the Norms of Reciprocity has
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For Elizabeth
This is my beloved and this is my friend.
-Song ofSon0s
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Contents
A Preface and Some Acknowledgements vii
Chapter One. Exploring the Mare's Nest l
The Mare's Nest 3
Inchoate Rights and Duties 7
Truncated Rights and Duties 11
Indefinite Rights and Duties 16
Chapter Two. Rendre Service 21
Generalized Reciprocity as Indefinite Duty 25
Generalized Reciprocity as Truncated Duty 28
Generalized Reciprocity as Inchoate Duty 31
Contracts and Covenants 35
Chapter Three. The Case of Kant 41
Obligations Wide and Narrow 44
Pursuing Obligatory Ends 47
Formal and Material Considerations 51
Kant a Supererogatorian? 54
Chapter Four. No Mean Morality 57
Imperfect Rights 60
Imperfect Justice 63
Imperfect Duty and Supererogation 67
The Limits of Law 70
The Reference List and a Short,
Select Bibliography 77
Index 107
V
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A Preface
and some Acknowledgements
. . . nice calculation is a niggardly thing.
-Aristotle
There is no denying that the object of my investigations—the
distinction between perfect and imperfect rights and duties—is
somewhat obscure. Although it has in the past been discussed rather
often and in detail by philosophers of note such as Immanuel Kant
and John Stuart Mill, I have discovered in conversation on both sides
of the Atlantic that many intelligent and otherwise well-educated
teachers of moral philosophy and of Christian ethics do not know
even to what the distinction refers: such has been the fate of a once
rather important moral and jurisprudential notion.
In fact, the doctrine has been largely a victim of its own popularity
For a long time it was such a commonplace and so commonly
accepted that its use prompted little discussion and required virtually
no defence at all. The result was predictable: the distinction was
gradually forgotten, and its neglect has unwittingly effected some
quietly momentous changes in our conceptions of morality and law.
If for no other reason, the claim that there are rights and duties both
of perfect and of imperfect obligation warrants a reconsideration now
just so that we do not continue a way of viewing the moral enterprise
which we have accepted mostly by default.
Traditionally, the doctrine of imperfect right played a major role in
determining which of our problems and purposes could, and could
not, be solved and met by our legal system. Clearly, this matter is
problematic today: I think that most people will agree that we now
live in an increasingly legalistic society in which we attempt to solve
vii
viii Sharing Without Reckoning
more and more of our problems by the enactment and enforcement
of laws.
I am told that an American magazine not so long ago published a
cartoon showing a father and his daughter at table. The daughter has
a resolute and confident expression on her face as her father asks (with
rather less resolution and confidence), "Are you saying that if I make
you eat your spinach, you will sue me?" Another example: at the end
of a fascinating study of how in the West procreation ceased to be a
boon and a blessing and became instead a duty—in some cases even
a legally enforceable one—David Daube points out that even today
"there are not a few blessings on the verge of changing into moral
oughts or legal musts." He cites as American examples, "medical
check-ups, multiple orgasms, and the vote."
There was a time when people said in banter, "There ought to be
a law." Now, if someone makes such a suggestion, they likely will be
taken seriously. Nearly everyone is uneasy in this situation, and I
suspect that intuitively most would agree with Iradell Jenkins's sugges-
tion (xi) that we are approaching the time when "we so overload the
legal apparatus that it short-circuits, creating a spectacular display of
fireworks but effecting nothing save its own wreckage."
If the domain of law occupies the territory adjoining one end of
moral obligation, then surely that non-obligatory sacrifice and
kindness which moralists refer to as the supererogatory occupies the
territory at the other. As early as 391 Ambrose of Milan [c. 339-397]
declared that the supererogatory Counsels of Perfection were nothing
other than imperfect obligations, and philosophers and theologians
have tended to confound them ever since. For a long time this meant
that the very possibility of a truly supererogatory realm was effectively
denied; today, the contrary is as often the case: the concept of
supererogation not only is allowed, but is allowed too much; perhaps
because a credible concept of imperfect obligation is now wanting. All
this is unfortunate because, properly understood, both imperfect
obligation and supererogation have legitimate roles to play in the
understanding of moral phenomena. The status of the supererogatory
is currently the matter of some considerable dispute; the recovery of
A Preface ix
the doctrine of imperfect right could be crucial in deciding just what
our duties are and are not.
Relevance to these two topics—the interface of law and ethics and
the interface of the obligatory and the supererogatory—is important
enough to justify fully an investigation into the topic at hand, but
there are further dividends as well: for instance, the distinction
between perfect and imperfect right might prove helpful in elucidating
some of the puzzles that have arisen in discussions of situational
ethics, proportionalism, and the use of the indicative mood in ethics;
and it might prove helpful, too, in attempts to take morality seriously
without falling into that peculiar and paradoxical vice known as
scruples.
This monograph is not my only attempt to think on this topic.
Some years ago I dealt in passing with the same subject matter in an
unpublished dissertation, "Rights, Duties, and Supererogation"; in a
paper titled "Toward a New Doctrine of Imperfect Obligation" and
read to the American Philosophical Association on 28 December
1972; and in two published papers: Supererogation: An Analysis and
a Bibliography and "Duty." Wherever it has been reasonable to do so,
I have borrowed freely from these earlier papers. However, my
research through the years has so changed my views that the borrow-
ings have been few.
During the course of an earlier phase of my research I was invited
to give three papers on the topic, and I have incorporated much of
their substance into this monograph. The papers were as follows:
"Mill and Kant on Imperfect Duty and Supererogation," read to the
Department of Philosophy of Edinburgh University on 16 February
1979; "Rewire Service: Imperfect Duties and the Norm of Recip-
rocity," read to the Department of Philosophy and the Faculty of
Theology of St. David's University College (Lampeter) on 24 April
1979; and "Sharing without Reckoning: Generalized Reciprocity and
Imperfect Obligation," read to the Institute for Advanced Studies in
the Humanities in Edinburgh on 25 May 1979.
At that point I became discouraged with the results of my research
and put the project aside, except that I made some use of it in the
second chapter of the monograph Appreciating our Good Earth and in
