Objectionable Obligations

Many of our moral obligations result partly from other people’s wrongdoing or from broader institutional or structural injustices. The author argues that in some of these cases, the agent is left morally compromised by their own moral obligations. Because of the relationship between these obligations and the wrongs or injustices that gave rise to them, such agents may perpetuate or exacerbate the original wrong; they may, more strongly, become the instrument of the original wrongdoer; or they may severely harm those whom they are obliged to assist, in ways that echo the original wrong or injustice. However, as these are all things considered moral obligations, those who do not fulfill them act wrongly, and may wrong those closest to them. Such obligations, then, can leave agents morally compromised no matter what they do. When they do, they are morally objectionable, or “objectionable obligations.” While the idea of an objectionable obligation can sound paradoxical, the article argues that it is quite coherent and provides us with an important normative resource, helping us better to understand social subordination and exploitation and to make progress in certain debates in normative ethics and political philosophy.