Gratitude, Rights, and Moral Standouts

Many maintain that if a beneficiary has a right to a benefit provided by his benefactor, then the former cannot owe the latter gratitude for that benefit. In this paper I argue against that view. I provide examples in which benefactors provide others with benefits to which they have a right even tho...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: MacConnell, Terrance C. 1948- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V [2017]
In: Ethical theory and moral practice
Year: 2017, Volume: 20, Issue: 2, Pages: 279-293
IxTheo Classification:NCB Personal ethics
VA Philosophy
Further subjects:B Gratitude
B Rights
B Obligation
B Servility
B Moral standouts
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Summary:Many maintain that if a beneficiary has a right to a benefit provided by his benefactor, then the former cannot owe the latter gratitude for that benefit. In this paper I argue against that view. I provide examples in which benefactors provide others with benefits to which they have a right even though most others are denying them that right. These benefactors are moral standouts; they do what is right when most similarly situated agents fail to do so. I then spell out some of the features of these benefactors’ actions that make them worthy of gratitude.
ISSN:1572-8447
Contains:Enthalten in: Ethical theory and moral practice
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10677-016-9761-2