In your 1-6, the subject is a person other than yourself. With respect to the general topic under discussion, shouldn’t the subject in fact be yourself? By what right does one have to say another ought, or is obliged, when the only possible way for one to say that, is by way of what he himself has already determined? So it isn’t really “you ought….”, but instead, is, “I think you ought….”, or, “if it was me you would have…..”, the truth of which in the former is in fact impossible to grant, insofar as the totality of conditions in one cannot be given in another. And this is readily apparent, for the internal relations necessary in the construction of a promise/obligation/etc., by one, can indeed be very far from those relations necessary for the experience of its object by another.

But then, it may just be the exposition you seek for the coherence of said conception(s) resides entirely in some metaphysical domain, from which the sum of raised participatory eyebrows inevitably takes away whatever power and justification that may have been contained in it.

For my money, ’s one-liner says it all. Or perhaps, establishes the groundwork for saying it all.

:up:

Can you give an account of "do this" which is much more coherent than obligation and its synonyms though? Maybe you can and I haven't thought about it enough but then I am curiousto test my intuition about this.

Can you give an account of "do this" which is much more coherent than obligation and its synonyms though? — Apustimelogist

It's a command; a phrase we use when we want or need someone to do something.

Apologies, I was thinking more about the literal meaning of the phrase. The phrase "to do something" in your reply or "to do" I would say are more or less along the same lines.

I am saying that something like "you ought brush your teeth" just means "brush your teeth" (or possibly "it is in your best interests to brush your teeth", but I don't think this meaning is relevant to this discussion).

I don't know what other thing it could mean. It is this other meaning that others claim is there that I want explained.

In fairness, I don't think I could explain to you what "to do" means if you didn't already have the intuition! I don't need that explanation to use the phrase. But I would agree that obligation can be trivialized/redundant and deflated significantly similarly to other social constructs when we analyze it in terms of just social interactions - people telling eachother what to do, having emotional reactions, etc. etc. It is naturalistically flimsy.

1. You ought do this
2. You should do this
3. You must do this
4. You are obliged to do this
5. You have an obligation to do this
6. You have a duty to do this — Michael

I said that when you make a promise, if you are being honest, you are obligating yourself, barring unforeseen circumstance that prevent you, to do what you have promised. Note the caveat "if you are being honest'.

The social mores do not differ too much in substance if not form from culture to culture. This reflects the fact that people naturally generally want to be able to trust and feel safe with their fellow citizens, friends and family.

As @Mww points out you are looking on mores merely as kinds of impositional commands The salient question is 'what do you expect from yourself'? Would you be comfortable making promises to others that you had no intention of keeping?

People are giving you answers that reflect a perspective that is participatory, whereas you are ignoring what they are telling you, looking at yourself as an isolated individual and complaining about not knowing what the obvious means.

If you do what's right because you're trying to satisfy others, that's a lesser form of morality. If you do what's right because otherwise you'd let yourself down, that's the higher form. — frank

I see the two as integrally connected, entangled, unless "satisfying others" for you means purely a matter of appearances, like wishing to merely seem honest, compassionate or whatever as opposed to actually being those virtuous things.

We all want basically the same things which I outlined in my reply to Michael above. So from the point of view of actually caring about others, satisfying others and being satisfied with yourself are not two different things.

We are getting to the heart of the matter I think and there we find edges. Not everything here will become clear or fit perfectly, but that is what I like to do here, argue and see how far we can get in understanding things. it is a caveat though, some things appear not well worked through and that is possibly because the forest here gets thicker and the cutting of a path harder.

Such as, the authority in the previous element of the discussion. That exists. It's authority exists (perhaps by consent, so it's some levels above the mechanics of an interpersonal obligation) and is arbitrarily enforced to the emotional contentedness of the majority of it's subjects and little, if anything else, is involved. In this case, I can't quite see how you could then still claim obligations exist. — AmadeusD

I do not think that entirely fits. On two accounts actually. Also a government that is not chosen by its people, say the government of the Soviet Union, still promulgated law and therefore on this positivist account you now seem to embrace (if only for the sake of argument perhaps), that law also backs up obligations. Secondly, obligations may also arise due to customs and not backed up by sanctions, at least not formal sanctions. For instance if you enter into a promise with your brother to return you the book. Whether it is legal or not is I think overly formal. The obligation arises out of the institutions of promising, contracting perhaps even principles of good conduct, legal or otherwise. The are institutional, so historically grown ways of speaking and acting that causes people to expect certain ways of speaking and acting. I think institutions are historically grown and determined in continuous practice so much so that they become part and parcel of our everyday world. That is where I part ways with the positivist.

The same can be said of an "obligation". It's an empty space between commitment and expectation. But there is nothing there. I guess, while this example is pretty parochial in terms of what concepts its engaging:

Person A promises;
Person B that they will attend X event on date Y specifically to accompany/support. Meaning B being present is crucial.
Person B, unfortunately, perishes on date V (i.e prior to the maturity of the 'promise').
Person A feels their promise is unfulfilled.
Person B is ... dead. There is nothing to oblige. They couldn't feel one way or the other. There is no obligation. — AmadeusD

I would say the obligation ended with the death of B. In this case I would construe the obligation as conditional, namely "I will be at event X under the condition that you will also be there". It does not change the fact that there was a promise between A and B and that A incurred the obligation to be there in order to assist B. That part of the promise being unfulfillable the promise becomes moot and so does the obligation that resulted from it. I have no qualms about saying an obligation exists and now does not exist anymore, due to some sort of circumstance ending it. Things pop in and out of existence all the time, they break, die, melt, etc. Obligations do not physically die but they may end, as the statute of limitations proves time and time again. (Although as mentioned very early on, in the Netherlands we have the legal figure of the 'natural obligation', an obligation which is unenforceable but still on the subject, also after exceedance of the statute of limitations, for instance on someone that stole a bike 20 years ago, he is still under the natural obligation to return it to the original owner)

The situation has not changed for person A. They mentally/emotionally feel their 'obligation'. — AmadeusD

I would not see why ... If they do, it is fine of course, but every good friend would tell them that under this condition they have no obligation anymore, at least I would assume...

1. Obligations do not exist. People with commitments and expectations exist; or
2. Obligations can exist in a positivist sense only.

Now, that gets messy - the kinds of 'authority' vary, and the enforceability varies etc.. etc.. etc. etc.. but the overall point seems clear to me: the obligation only exists as an instrument of authority and does not obtain without it. However, I now anticipate some type of "well, your emotional reaction is a kind of authority". Yes, it is. But it is not an obligation. It's an enforcement mechanism. So, "obligation" is the wrong word, I'm just trying to be least-confusing. — AmadeusD

I am actually with you on 1, People with commitments and expectations exist. But between them certain relations are established. Your account, like those of Michael and Frank, still seems to individualistic to me and committed to the idea that things exist but relations do not. I feel like echoing Wittgenstein suddenly(something I really rarely do :eek:) "The world is the totality of facts not of things" (prop. 2 of the Tractatus). They live within a wholly constructed world of relations. My questions would be, why deny them existence?

I know this view does not solve all problems. As you rightly state, there is some sort of 'authority' needed. I seem to hold a very broad view of authority, but there are limits. Fortunately you seem to also agree that authority varies and enforceability varies. I would not put all my eggs in the basket of enforceability though. I think the enforcement mechanism is actually logically posterior in the sense that we feel some obligations must be protected and cannot be ignored. To ensure that we impose a system of sanctions on some. Yet, to have an obligation I think there must be a relation to the other person perhaps or to so third party, which may be a community or whatever. I am with you that merely an emotional state does not bring on obligations. They are not private they are public in the sense that they must have a moment of externalization, often by certain procedure. That can be an elaborate and public procedure such as a marriage, or a very small and informal procedure by uttering the word 'I promise'. Also not all obligations are equally serious, like not all doors are equally heavy.

Seems to me here you've inadvertently dropped your point here, and picked up mine? I'm only hearing, as conclusions to these points "It leaves a bad taste" or "It would hurt the relationship between entity X and entity Y". Yep. Not an obligation? Onward... — AmadeusD

No, as per my view outlined above, there is something more than "it leaves a bad taste" or "it would hurt the relationship between X and Y". The law might demand it, or custom might demand it. I might even go as far as saying 'the social order demands it', though I also feel antsy with such sweeping reifications. Yet I think the point of an obligation is exactly that. The institution of promising is violated when promises are not kept. That is not only a private issue between people, but a social issue because the institution of promising is an important pattern by which we govern our conduct and negotiate our journey through the world.

This explains a whole lot about your responses around Marriage, but this just makes it all the more obvious there exists a legal obligation and where there is no enforcing authority, there is no obligation. And, here, "obligation" actually just means "threat of consequence". — AmadeusD

I think I addressed this above. Threat of sanction does not explain it and I think sanctions are posterior. If it was mere sanction you and probably the others would be right. The word usually used in jurisprudence and in socio legal studies is legitimacy, but that is a beast that does not clarify much. I would hold that legitimacy derives from adhered to procedure, the notion that this is they way things should be done.

Only hte brainstate changes, and (in this story) only for the promissor. — AmadeusD

The funny thing is that here our disagreement has some interesting consequences. To me a false promise (a promise one is not intended to keep) is still a promise as good as any. That the brainstate differs for me matters nothing. To me it is actually a dire consequence of the idea that promises are related to brain states that one must say that whether a promise is made or not is totally subjective (depending on the brain state of the promisor. As we do not have access to it we never know whether a promise is real or false. What is false is actually not the promise, that is real and should be kept, what is false is the intention of the promisor.

If you, personally, jettison your promise you have no obligation. Even if we're going to grant the obligation "thing" status, its collapsed because you pulled your support out from it. — AmadeusD

I truly wonder why you would hold on to a theory that grants this result. "If I feel I have no obligation, I have no obligation". That is odd because an obligation is almost by definition a burden. Why would one want to keep a burden? If that would be a convincing position the whole notion of obligations and promises and what not, would collapse no?

It doesn't. One is simply "legitimate authority". The behaviour is the same (i touched on this earlier in this post, funnily enough). What could possibly be said to be different?

"Do this or I'll break your legs" - Dealer
"Do this or I'll take your kids and give them to another set of parents temporarily" - Gov'munt

I may prefer my legs broken, personally. But that aside, there are given rules, and given consequences to not following them. The "culturally embedded" concept of promise functions the same in both of the above scenarios. In fact, I would argue that both of these scenarios exist precisely because the obligation itself is no where to be found. Enforcement solves that. — AmadeusD

There is a world of difference and your example makes clear you see the difference too. you do not say: "Do this or I'll break your legs" - Dealer
"Do this or I'll break your legs" - Gov'munt

That is logical because a government does not say that. If it does it acts no better than the dealer and its exercise of power is wholly arbitrary like the dealer's. The taking of your kids is probably an action to protect them, taken in accordance with proper procedure and therefore legitimate and therefore you have the obligation to do so. What the government does is to force you to adhere to a norm, in this example it is not clear to what norm, but probably something relevant to your kids' well being. The dealers' threat is a means to force you to carry out an action brought force by his whim. I think an argument can well be made that if a government would behave like a dealer and threaten in the same vein, the obligations its command are moot as its reign lost legitimacy. (The sanctions of govt could be every bit as severe, often even moreso, but that is not the issue I think.)

Purely on a legal mind-to-legal mind basis, what do you mean here? Is the assertion that there is some kind of legal principle which actually transcends human minds? I have never been able to get on board with anything remotely close to "natural law" type arguments so Im really curious. — AmadeusD

I am not a natural law theorist. The legal principles I hold to exist stem from the coherence, consistency and goals of the body of laws itself. They might not be stipulated as such, but they are the principles in accordance to which our law is laid down and can be construed by comparing and interpreting its rules in a consistent manner. A legal principle for instance is the notion that promises should be kept. One is also that "no one may profit from his own wrong" as in Riggs v Palmer. I am not going further into Dworkinian philosophy of law though. The difference though between these and natural law principles is that these principles stem from the law itself, our customary interpretation of it and even from our customs themselves, but they are not transcendental. They are immanent.

It has been a long post but worthwhile to write. Now I am off to bed...
Take care,
Tobias

I do not think that entirely fits. On two accounts actually. Also a government that is not chosen by its people, say the government of the Soviet Union, still promulgated law and therefore on this positivist account you now seem to embrace (if only for the sake of argument perhaps), that law also backs up obligations. — Tobias

To be entirely clear, I don't hold that view. I think 'legal obligations' exist, and are pursuant to written laws. Those laws may be arbitrary, and that's another argument for another day. But the obligations themselves only exist in light of whatever that legislation requires from person X.

Secondly, obligations may also arise due to customs and not backed up by sanctions, at least not formal sanctions. For instance if you enter into a promise with your brother to return you the book. — Tobias

This is what I reject, entirely, and have seen nothing which would establish this to be more than a nicety of mind.

the institutions of promising, contracting perhaps even principles of good conduct — Tobias

this is incoherent to me. Nothing here gives me anything except that you consider non-physical concepts of mind institutions. That seems...absurd? Perhaps that's a bit harsh but I can't grasp where you're coming from, or going. To make a little clearer where i'm going I take obligations to come into existence, as legal entities for lack of a better term. Obviously tehy aren't 'entities' but there are enforceable 'promises' made in law. They are not enforceable outside of this. You are not obliged. There is no obligation (beyond that which I've described earlier - I just don't see how two other, unrelated, physical things, could amount to a non-physical obligation).

so historically grown ways of speaking and acting that causes people to expect certain ways of speaking and acting. I think institutions are historically grown and determined in continuous practice so much so that they become part and parcel of our everyday world. — Tobias

I agree that this is the the state of affairs, generally. The 'obligations' never arise from custom. They arise from formalising a custom (so that goes to our disagreement re: positivism to some degree too).

That part of the promise being unfulfillable the promise becomes moot and so does the obligation that resulted from it. — Tobias

Can you outline why there would be any difference here between someone forgetting their own commitment? If person A in that story simply drank too much, forgot, and didn't turn up. There's no mens rea. Can you point out the wrong-maker there?

Netherlands we have the legal figure of the 'natural obligation', — Tobias

So, just a mis-named extension of a legal obligation to my mind

. Hard to see how that's being missed?

Things pop in and out of existence all the time — Tobias

(this will elicit more, so I quoted it after the previous one)
Yes, I agree. And a promise would fit this bill, imo. You make a promise, in a moment, and that moment is then gone. It's up to you what you do after that (again, allowing for enforceability mechanisms creating artificial obligations such as at law - It's a "If you want X, then do/don't do Y - this is true without hte Law too).

he is still under the natural obligation to return it to the original owner — Tobias

Im not sure this can supported by anything. It's a assertion, and one that we've developed Law to enforce. Otherwise it's a nothing.

There is a world of difference — Tobias

There is not any difference, conceptually, as my examples show. They are separate practical scenarios, but nothing changes at-base. Your response here is perplexing in that regard.

but every good friend would tell them that under this condition they have no obligation anymore, at least I would assume... — Tobias

This, also, explains how you're approaching this. I'm unsure you can get away with claiming anything but that your responses represent your emotional reactions to these issues after this, and the line noted in your previous email (i think, addressed further down this post).

The institution of promising is violated when promises are not kept. That is not only a private issue between people, but a social issue because the institution of promising is an important pattern by which we govern our conduct and negotiate our journey through the world. — Tobias

Conceptually, perhaps, but you're conflating hte conceptual with the practical here so I can't really make heads or tails.

Your account, like those of Michael and Frank, still seems to individualistic to me and committed to the idea that things exist but relations do not. — Tobias

It doesn't do this at all imo. Relations exist. An obligation isn't a relation. An expectation/commitment nexus is a relation. An obligation, in all the ways outline in this thread, is a free-floating nonsense. It literally has nothing to it except the above attitudes, in relation to each other. No where does an obligation pop into existence. Again, except at the behest of enforcement. And even here, it's still boiled down to what one, personally, is happy to accept as a consequence. Conflating something which can be described (relation, commitment, expectation) with someone literally made up is... not a good move to me.

Threat of sanction does not explain it — Tobias

Yet, it does. Entirely. There is no loose end in my description of how 'promises' work. I take it that you're simply uncomfortable with it, whcih is fine. That's why we have the Law.

the notion that this is they way things should be done. — Tobias

Which is arbitrary. Obviously. Going to your point about - the government does act like a dealer. It has just been given 'legitimacy'. Like a pharmacist. Postivism is baked into this account, or ignored entirely. Going to the below couple of responses...

That is logical because a government does not say that. — Tobias

This is not logical, in any way, because the Government says "I'll put you in jail" "Ill take your kids" "I'll put you in a labour camp" "I'll make your life economically untenable" among other things. The fact that governments no longer specifically break legs (some do, actually) isn't relevant. The threat of force is EXACTLY the same. We just assent to the Government because we assess it as legitimate. There is nought else involved. In fact, that's largely how governments get going - Kowloon is a perfect example.

What the government does is to force you to adhere to a norm — Tobias

The relevant norm is paying for your goods in a society of commerce. The Dealer is doing the same thing

if a government would behave like a dealer and threaten in the same vein, the obligations its command are moot as its reign lost legitimacy. (The sanctions of govt could be every bit as severe, often even moreso, but that is not the issue I think.) — Tobias

This is, in fact, what a huge section of society feels. And it's a completely legitimate position. Questioning why, how and how far we asset to the government's demands is one of the most important socio-political questions that is available to modern society. Generally speaking, half the population of a given country is at the behest of a system it doesn't assent to per se - but democracy has prevailed. And so we accept "legitimacy" as the mediating factor. Governments get overthrown when the go as far as a dealer, and are small enough to be overthrown. When the government is too big to be overthrown (analogously: Cartels) we have to muddle through.

I understand that you assent to government demands. You would not assent to a dealer's demands. The difference is very, very little. Attitude.

the coherence, consistency and goals of the body of laws itself. — Tobias

So, you are a positivist? If you're not a natural law theorist, where does this legitimacy come from for you to asset to these principles? Seems to me you agree with them. Fair.

Was absolutely worthwhile, and I thank you immensely for your time!