 Doing one’s duty does not win the agent any credit. She only did what she had to do. But going beyond the call of duty is meritorious exactly in the sense that the agent did something “extra,” breaking the balance of justice or that of respect for claim-rights and the fulfillment of duties. This merit of supererogatory action should be held distinct from the praise we often assign to the agent. Praise is a subjective assessment or recognition of the particular way in which the agent faced a moral challenge and acted as she did (e.g. overcoming special difficulties or obstacles, or sacrificing herself in the course of doing either what was her duty or what lay beyond it). Merit is an objective property of the act itself. It is typically attached to heroic and saintly acts, but it can also be gained by minor supererogatory acts of kindness or gifts, and is thus not necessarily associated with particular praise for the agent (cf. Montague 1989, Trianosky 1986). Recent works on supererogation refer to “moral-merit-conferring reasons” for action, i.e. reasons which are neither “requiring” nor “justifying” as a way to untie “the knot” (or alleged paradox) of supererogation (Horgan and Timmons 2010, Dreier 2004). But unlike the Catholic doctrine, few theorists of supererogation believe that this merit is transferable or can serve as compensation for other people’s moral failures. And although supererogation cannot be hoped to simply offset even one’s own violations of duty, the merit of actions beyond the call of duty definitely plays an important role in the overall evaluation of one’s moral record. In cases of a high potential benefit we may sometimes even be permitted to act supererogatorily rather than do our duty (Kamm 1985). Furthermore, the traditional idea of merit (or “superabundance”) associated with supererogation is reflected in secular ethical theory in the duty of gratitude: acknowledging the meritorious nature of a gift or any non-obligatory well doing is the morally obligatory response (irrespective of the moral praise which might or might not accrue to the agent of the supererogatory act).