Gregory F. Mellema

The core idea presented in this book is really interesting: the book explores the difference between moral obligation and moral expectation. There are things we are morally expected to do which we are not required to do. However, the book suffers from the fact that it spends more time trying to establish moral expectations as separate from moral obligations than it spends really developing what the difference is. In that sense, it seems to be mostly addressed to philosophers who are somewhat skeptical of the idea of moral expectations separate from moral obligations.

For example, the book spends a lot of time arguing that one can be morally blameworthy for not fulfilling moral expectations. Yet it is taken for granted that we know the implications of not fulfilling moral obligations. The closest the book came to defining the difference was a line in the foreword (by a different author) which associated unfulfilled expectations with blameworthiness and unfulfilled obligations with guilt.

That said, the book did discuss a number of interesting ideas. The most interesting, to me, was the idea of the symbolic dimension of both expectations and obligations. This is the idea that an expectation can take on symbolic meaning that goes beyond the degree of blameworthiness associated with the expectation itself. This comes from how people perceive both the act and the actor. For example, failing to fulfill an expectation to hold a door for someone with full arms could have a symbolic dimension that causes that person to be perceived as rude.

Overall, I don't regret reading it; it had some good ideas. Still, it was a bit of a slog.… (mais)