A duty to act or to refrain that results from the right of a person or from the objective value of an entity. Obligation is not a merely subjective feeling of duty, but an objective demand arising from reality itself: because the person possesses an inalienable dignity, the other has an obligation toward her — regardless of whether he feels or acknowledges it.
Obligations arise in various ways. First, from the being of the person herself: the mere existence of a person grounds the duty not to instrumentalize her, not to kill her, not to degrade her. This obligation is grounded in the Personalist Norm and is prior to any positive law.
Second, from social acts such as the promise: whoever makes a promise generates an obligation that is grounded in the nature of the promise itself. Third, from the objective value of an entity: even sentient animals ground an obligation, albeit a weaker one (cf. animal welfare).
The ontological relation has obligation expresses that persons are bearers of obligations. Obligation is thus not an abstract category, but always refers to a concrete person who is obligated and to a concrete content — an action or an omission — to which she is obligated.
Justice and obligation are correlative concepts: what is due to one person (suum cuique), the other is obligated to render. The responsibility of the person comprises the capacity and readiness to recognize and fulfill her obligations.
Ontological classification
- Superordinate concept: Entity
- Has subclass: Animal Welfare
- Relation: range of has obligation
Ontological relations:
- Is subclass of: Entity
- Has subclass: Animal Welfare
Sources: Generated by querying the Personhood ontology.
Further sources:
- Thomas Aquinas: Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 58, a. 1 (justice as suum cuique — correlative to obligation)
- Spaemann, Robert: Persons: The Difference between ‘Someone’ and ‘Something’, transl. Oliver O’Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. (Obligation toward persons as an ontological category)
- Reinach, Adolf: Die apriorischen Grundlagen des bürgerlichen Rechtes, 1913 (German). (A priori legal structures: claim and obligation)