The Concept of Moral Obligation

The Concept of Moral Obligation
Author: Michael J. Zimmerman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 1996-03-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521497060

The principal aim of this book is to develop and defend an analysis of the concept of moral obligation. What it seeks to do is generate new solutions to a range of philosophical problems concerning obligation and its application. Amongst these problems are deontic paradoxes, the supersession of obligation, conditional obligation, actualism and possibilism, dilemmas, supererogation, and cooperation. By virtue of its normative neutrality, the analysis provides a theoretical framework within which competing theories of obligation can be developed and assessed.

Obligations

Obligations
Author: Scott Veitch
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2021-02-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1000344851

Obligations: New Trajectories in Law provides a critical analysis of the role of obligations in contemporary legal and social practices. As rights have become the preeminent feature of modern political and legal discourse, the work of obligations has been overshadowed. Questioning and correcting this dominant image of our time, this book brings obligations back into view in a way that fits better with the realities of contemporary social life. Following a historical account of the changing place and priorities of obligations in modernity, the book analyses how obligations and practices of obedience are core to understanding how law sustains conditions of inequality. But it also explores the enduring role obligations play in furthering individual and collective well-being, highlighting their significance in practices that prioritize human and environmental needs, common goods, and solidarity. In doing so, it also offers an alternative and cogent assessment of the force, and the potential, of obligations in contemporary societies. This original jurisprudential contribution will appeal to an academic and student readership in law, politics, and the social sciences.

Against Obligation

Against Obligation
Author: Abner Greene
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2012-04-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0674065174

Do citizens of a nation such as the United States have a moral duty to obey the law? Do officials, when interpreting the Constitution, have an obligation to follow what that text meant when ratified? To follow precedent? To follow what the Supreme Court today says the Constitution means?These are questions of political obligation (for citizens) and interpretive obligation (for anyone interpreting the Constitution, often officials). Abner Greene argues that such obligations do not exist. Although citizens should obey some laws entirely, and other laws in some instances, no one has put forth a successful argument that citizens should obey all laws all the time. Greene's case is not only "against" obligation. It is also "for" an approach he calls "permeable sovereignty": all of our norms are on equal footing with the state's laws. Accordingly, the state should accommodate religious, philosophical, family, or tribal norms whenever possible. Greene shows that questions of interpretive obligation share many qualities with those of political obligation. In rejecting the view that constitutional interpreters must follow either prior or higher sources of constitutional meaning, Greene confronts and turns aside arguments similar to those offered for a moral duty of citizens to obey the law.

Understanding Moral Obligation

Understanding Moral Obligation
Author: Robert Stern
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2011-12-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1139505017

In many histories of modern ethics, Kant is supposed to have ushered in an anti-realist or constructivist turn by holding that unless we ourselves 'author' or lay down moral norms and values for ourselves, our autonomy as agents will be threatened. In this book, Robert Stern challenges the cogency of this 'argument from autonomy', and claims that Kant never subscribed to it. Rather, it is not value realism but the apparent obligatoriness of morality that really poses a challenge to our autonomy: how can this be accounted for without taking away our freedom? The debate the book focuses on therefore concerns whether this obligatoriness should be located in ourselves (Kant), in others (Hegel) or in God (Kierkegaard). Stern traces the historical dialectic that drove the development of these respective theories, and clearly and sympathetically considers their merits and disadvantages; he concludes by arguing that the choice between them remains open.

Law, Obligation, Community

Law, Obligation, Community
Author: Daniel Matthews
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 325
Release: 2018-06-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1351403699

Against an ever-expanding and diversifying ‘rights talk’, this book re-opens the question of obligation from not only legal but also ethical, sociological and political perspectives. Its premise is that obligation has a primacy ahead of rights, because rights attach to practices and modes of being that are already saturated with obligations. Obligations thus lie at the core not just of law but of community. Yet the distinctive meanings, range and situations of obligation have tended to remain under-theorised in legal scholarship. In response, this book examines the sense in which we are multiply ‘bound beings’, to law and legal institutions, as much as we are to place, community, memory and the various social institutions that give shape to collective life. Sharing this set of concerns, each of the international group of scholars contributing to this volume traces the specificity of the binding force of obligations, their techniques and modes of expression, as well as their centrally important role in giving form to lawful relations. Together they provide an innovative and challenging contribution to legal scholarship: one that will also be of relevance to those working in politics, philosophy and social theory.

Obligations

Obligations
Author: Michael Walzer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 264
Release: 1970
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780674630253

In this collection of essays, Michael Walzer discusses how obligations are incurred, sustained, and (sometimes) abandoned by citizens of the modern state and members of political parties and movements as they respond to and participate in the most crucial and controversial aspects of citizenship: resistance, dissent, civil disobedience, war, and revolution. Walzer approaches these issues with insight and historical perspective, exhibiting an extraordinary understanding for rebels, radicals, and rational revolutionaries. The reader will not always agree with Walzer but he cannot help being stimulated, excited, challenged, and moved to thoughtful analysis.

Obligation

Obligation
Author: Aurora Rose Reynolds
Publisher: EverAfter Romance
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2017-02-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781682308974

[ob-li-gey-shuh n]: An obligation is a course of action that someone is required to take, whether legal or moral. At six years old, Myla was sent to a family her father and mother had chosen for her when they knew their time on earth was almost up. What they were unaware of was what they thought would be her safe haven would become her living hell. Kai has been watching Myla from afar since he took over the family business from his father and inherited the responsibility of keeping her safe. When word gets back to Kai that Myla is not only in danger, but that his assets are being compromised, he immediately jumps into action and does the only thing that can be done at the time by marrying her. Neither Myla nor Kai would have thought that something that started off as a farce would become the most important thing either of them could've ever done.

The Obligation Mosaic

The Obligation Mosaic
Author: Allison P. Anoll
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2022-01-21
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 022681257X

Many argue that “civic duty” explains why Americans engage in politics, but what does civic duty mean, and does it mean the same thing across communities? Why are people from marginalized social groups often more likely than their more privileged counterparts to participate in high-cost political activities? In The Obligation Mosaic, Allison P. Anoll shows that the obligations that bring people into the political world—or encourage them to stay away—vary systematically by race in the United States, with broad consequences for representation. Drawing on a rich mix of interviews, surveys, and experiments with Asian, Black, Latino, and White Americans, the book uncovers two common norms that centrally define concepts of obligation: honoring ancestors and helping those in need. Whether these norms lead different groups to politics depends on distinct racial histories and continued patterns of segregation. Anoll’s findings not only help to explain patterns of participation but also provide a window into opportunities for change, suggesting how activists and parties might better mobilize marginalized citizens.

Core Obligations

Core Obligations
Author: Sage Russell
Publisher: Intersentia nv
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2002
Genre: Civil rights
ISBN: 9050952054

2. History and Norms

Days of Obligation

Days of Obligation
Author: Richard Rodriguez
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 257
Release: 1993-11-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0140096221

A Pulitzer Prize Finalist Rodriguez's acclaimed first book, Hunger of Memory raised a fierce controversy with its views on bilingualism and alternative action. Now, in a series of intelligent and candid essays, Rodriguez ranges over five centuries to consider the moral and spiritual landscapes of Mexico and the US and their impact on his soul.