Conflicts of Obligation

Abstract

In the preceding chapters of this book, I have introduced a variety of concepts of absolute (nonconditional) obligation. Among these are individual moral obligation, individual prudential obligation, social obligation, and civic obligation. I have also introduced and discussed some forms of “collective” obligation — group moral and prudential obligation, for example. There is also the concept of the ought-to-be. Each of these is a “doing-the-best-we-can” concept of obligation, defined by appeal to some concept of possibility and some concept of value. In addition to all of these, there are also some concepts of obligation that have not been discussed here. Among these are various society- and code-relative forms of obligation, such as legal obligation and etiquettical obligation. Such concepts as these are not doing-the-best-we-can concepts of obligation. They would require a rather different sort of analysis.