Abstract
Conceptual jurisprudence is concerned to explicate the concept of law and other concepts central to core legal practices, as we understand them. The centrality of obligation-talk to legal practice is obvious, as the very point of litigation is to resolve disputes regarding the obligations of the various parties. In this essay, I argue that the general concept of obligation – of which social, legal, and moral obligation are subtypes – includes a conceptual moral constraint. Just as only a very good person can count as a “saint,” only a system of norms that satisfies certain moral norms can count as giving rise to “obligations.” Accordingly, I argue, as a conceptual matter, that only those institutional systems of social norms that satisfy some threshold level of moral respectability have the capacity to create obligations.
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I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for comments that enabled me to greatly improve the arguments in this essay.
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Himma, K.E. Is the Concept of Obligation Moralized?. Law and Philos 37, 203–227 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-017-9311-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-017-9311-7