Having an obligation to do something is different from having an ordinary reason to act. When a person is under an obligation, she is required to act accordingly, and perhaps also constrained in pursuing other goals. But what explains the normative difference an obligation makes? There are obligations of very different stripes, and with different historical backgrounds: voluntary obligations (e.g. promissory obligations); obligations that arise from relationships such as being someone’s friend, lover or relative; obligations that are part and parcel of being a member of a social group; role obligations, such as professional obligations, and obligations we have to everyone, strangers and close relations alike, such as obligations to respect their rights. Is there anything shared between the members of this motley crew?
I want to explore the possibility of explaining obligations as ‘protected reasons’, i.e. as combinations of first- and second-order reasons. According to this suggestion, a protected reason to φ is a first-order reason to φ, combined with an exclusionary reason not to be guided by some reasons, R1-Rn, which are excluded from guiding the agent. Does that suggestion help with understanding the special normative role of obligations? It raises many questions of its own which I will explain and try to answer. But it also has distinctive virtues, e.g.
(i) it explains how obligations differ from other reasons without relying on considerations of strength or weight;
(ii) it allows that obligations are defeasible, and
(iii) it introduces a way in which obligations restrain our freedom by enjoining us not to act for reasons of a certain kind;
(iv) it doesn’t involve any claim to the effect that the presence of an obligation magically voids (cancels, annuls or defeats) other reasons when there is a conflict;
(v) it doesn’t rely on any claims about ‘motivation’ or ‘quality of will’ in explaining obligations.
Moral Philosophy Seminar Convenor: Jeremy Fix
