SUPEREROGATORY HEROISM
When most of us think of heroes, we are thinking of individuals who take spectacular risks, especially of death, in the performance of extraordinary acts in duty or service to others or a great cause. 
This includes military heroes such as Audie Murphy who personally killed or wounded 50 enemy troops in an astonishing battlefield action re-enacted in his movie To Hell and Back or Joan of Arc who turned the tide in the Hundred Years’ War. But it also includes those who engage in high risk adventures in the interests of humanity such as Charles Lindberg, the first man to fly across the Atlantic or Yuri Gagarin the first human to journey into outer space, and those who risk everything for social justice such as Martin Luther King who died in the fight for racial equality or Malala Yousafzai, a young Pakistani girl who survived a gunshot wound to her head after standing up to the Taliban for girls’ education.
There is a second form of supererogatory heroism, the person of great enterprise. These heroes generally do not risk danger to their person, but rather demonstrate heroic determination in achieving a grand purpose in their lifetime. Whether it is Henry Ford making the automobile available for the common man, Will and Ariel Durant compiling a multidimensional history of human civilization, or 
Elon Musk investing in SpaceX with the mission to revolutionize space transportation to allow life to expand to other planets, we recognize the heroic effort expended to change the world.
All these forms of heroism beyond the call of duty inspire those of us who are less bold, less courageous, or less capable, by serving as examples for us to follow in achieving our own meaningful lives.* Next we will take a closer look at heroism from a philosophical standpoint including pitfalls for the unwary.
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*Two exceptional cases of supererogatory heroism that do not quite fit the above categories are worth remembering. On January 13, 1982, a Boeing 737-222 plunged into the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., killing 73 people on impact leaving only six survivors in the freezing river. A police helicopter arrived and began assisting the survivors in a risky operation. Known as the “sixth passenger,” Arland Williams survived the crash, and passed lifelines on to others rather than take one for himself, drowning before the last line came. Williams received the Coast Guard Gold Lifesaving Medal posthumously and the bridge the plane struck was later renamed the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge.
The second involves United Airlines Flight 93 which was hijacked by four al-Qaeda terrorists as part of the September 11 attacks. It crashed into a field in Pennsylvania during an attempt by the passengers and crew to regain control. All 44 people on board were killed. The intended target was the U.S. Capitol Building. United Airlines Flight 93 was the only aircraft that did not reach the hijackers’ intended target, and only because the passengers rose up, in the face of certain death, and forced the hijackers to crash the plane in a field away from other innocents. The last words of one of the heroes, Todd Beamer, are a poignant statement of the human triumph of good over evil in the world, “Are you guys ready? Okay. Let’s roll.” A permanent Flight 93 National Memorial was dedicated on September 10, 2011.
The unquestionably higher level of heroism is the unexpected and gratuitous acts of ordinary people involving some personal risk or pain in the service of others. These can be incidental such as helping down a cat stranded in a tree, stopping to help a stranger change a tire on a freeway, or saving a drowning child, or deliberate such as donating blood, protesting nonviolently against tyranny and injustice, or even planting a tree in a public space. Everyday heroism originates from inner selflessness, courage, fortitude, and love for others and for nature. Individuals seeking greater meaning in their life may find it in frequent acts of such heroism or in more extreme acts such as anonymously donating a kidney.
The threat of danger to the individual is traded for the opportunity to help others or to maintain a harmonious society. The inner drive for such employment is not primarily monetary, but virtuous for most of them. The final proof of the virtue of such professions is seen when they save a life and yet deny their act was heroic, but rather “just doing my job.”
Aristotle uses the term liberality for one’s attitude to one’s own property, where virtue is the mean between prodigality and greed or stinginess. Similarly magnificence is the mean between vulgarity and meanness in the conduct of great enterprises. Aristotle recognizes the value and obligation of riches. Giving is noble and good especially when to the right people, while taking implies only being treated well for which gratitude is due. The noble man “values wealth not for its own sake, but as offering him an opportunity of giving.”2 Likewise, spending must be on the right objects in the right amounts in matters both small and great; and wealth must be from the right source in the right amounts.
Disproportionality then is the key measure of injustice in personal relationships. The doer of injustice ends up with too much of a good and the victim too little (and the reverse for an evil). In society proportionate returns occur by cross-exchange, meaning fair compensation for another’s labor or goods (the reason money was invented). The personal virtue of justice extends beyond material goods encompassing actions such as adultery and violence. Wrongs done to others may be due to accident, error, or malice with the latter being unjust and the others requiring correction via just compensation.
“Every action done in company ought to be done with some sign of respect to those that are present”
Propriety is a mix of demeanor and manners; part inner calm and patience, part familiarity with social mores, and part practical wisdom in one’s conduct. The greatest ancient sage of propriety is unquestionably Confucius. In The Analects, his students tell us that virtue for Confucius consists of three key principles: Jen, benevolence to other men, Li, rules of propriety and socially acceptable behavior, and Hsiao, filial piety which broadly includes respect for one’s parents and teachers, and the law and order of society. If ethical principles are placed above profit, and governance occurs by moral example and persuasion, an orderly and peaceful society ensues permitting the harmonious development of its members.
“The archer can be taken as an analogy, in some respects, for the man of noble character. For when he fails to strike his target squarely, he turns his gaze inward and seeks the cause in his own individual capacity” – Chung Yung.
The course to self-mastery starts at the moment you decide to seek it. Initial efforts will likely involve self-denial such as limiting food intake or type, technologies (television, internet, electronic games, etc.), or other recreations. Withdrawal craving is countered with meditation and physical exertion. Reading the great spiritual texts such as the Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Tao Te Ching or the works of great thinkers such as Seneca, Epictetus, and Montaigne facilitates growth and tranquility. Self-denial, meditation, and philosophic study give one a new perspective on one’s place in the cosmos. Selfishness eases and humility increases. Solitude permits expanded self-knowledge and greater self-improvement. A mentor or even a good friend may help one understand one’s total potentialities and galvanize self-actualization. If you remember only one piece of advice from me let it be this: never surrender the ultimate goal of self-mastery.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” – e.e. cummings
For the uncertain, seek a mentor- a willing person of meaningful accomplishments and high ethical standards. Each of us has a unique aggregate of traits and beliefs that make up our authentic self. The most basic virtue underlying a fully functional life and inner happiness is located at the Archimedean point of mastery and actualization of the authentic self.
Philosophy and psychology intersect at the final stage of self-actualization, a term used extensively by Abraham Maslow, a psychologist. He tells us that we have an essential inner nature which includes capacities, talents, temperament, and inclinations, that amount to potentiality. Authentic selfhood is hearing one’s inner voice, which is to say, identifying what one really wants and for what one is fit. It is self-creative, the individual as his own project. It springs from a balance of gratification of needs (e.g. safety, belonging, esteem, and freedom) with frustration-tolerance (e.g. encountering challenges and dealing with failure). Self-realization is the realm of dichotomy where selfishness and unselfishness merge as do work and play and duty and pleasure. We need not fear an intrinsically evil personality, which emerges rather from a stifling of one’s inner nature. Self-actualization entails acceptance and expression of the authentic self and escape from the evil tendencies of self-negation. Sadly, he estimates less than 1% of population ever becomes self-actualized.9
After identifying one’s authentic self, the next step is self-affirmation which has two parts. The first is acceptance of the recognized self. Paul Tillich, in his book The Courage to Be, offers a path, seemingly picking up where Heidegger left off. Recognition of the authentic self is intricately tied up with feelings of guilt; especially regarding our inauthentic past and the imperfection of our finitude. Traditionally we seek forgiveness from others or from God – both worthy actions – but in fact, it is self-forgiveness and acceptance of our self as a finite being (what he calls the ‘courage of confidence’) which opens the door to our actualization. Tillich writes: “…the courage to be is the courage to accept oneself as accepted in spite of being unacceptable.”4,5 
Being-itself is Tillich’s concept of the divine; thus self-affirmation occurs through the courage to be, and faith (a state, not a belief) is the experience of the power of this courage.8 In short, we come upon an existential paradox; self-affirmation is, unexpectedly, the courage to accept our finitude and align our being with ultimate reality.
“A human being is never what he is but the self he seeks.” – Octavio Paz, Nobel Laureate, Literature, 1990.
In Eckard Tolle’s Gateways to Now,1 he elegantly explains that each of us carries within our name a metaphorical basket with eggs representing the labels and attributes assigned to us by our parents and others. In adolescence and young adulthood we begin to recognize that the characteristics which compose our self-image after years of filling this basket are arbitrary, accidental, or artificial.
The most powerful example of spirituality in Western philosophy is Neoplatonism, and specifically the Enneads of Plotinus. In Frank Magill’s summary, Plotinus teaches one to transcend the body and follow the path upwards from soul (self) to the Intellectual Principle to the One (the Good). In order to escape evil, multiplicity, and materiality for the unitary source “one must study and discipline himself for metaphysical insight.”5 How? “The philosopher is stirred by love and moved by beauty; both of these experiences teach him to discern the higher from the lower in nature’s sphere.”6 “To read Plotinus is to “stretch the mind’s natural habits and to learn to think and visualize in new ways. Contrast is the proper method: bodes are exclusively many; the Supreme is exclusively one.”7
Eckhardt’s writings are particularly instructive; key priorities are obedience to God, freedom of mind, self-denial, detachment, diligence, and love. “One must learn to cultivate an inward solitude wherever and with whomsoever one may be. One must learn to break through things and to grasp one’s God in them and to be able to picture Him powerfully to oneself in an essential manner.”8
