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Obligations to Oneself (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

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Moral philosophy is often said to be about what we owe to each other. Do we owe anything to ourselves? Philosophers are torn. On the one hand, obligations to self are a mainstay of moral theories – most famously Kant’s – as well as ordinary thinking. It is not just academic Kantians who believe in making something of our lives and standing up for ourselves. And yet, the idea of literally owing things to oneself can sound paradoxical. When I owe you $5, I am bound to pay. When you owe me $5, I can waive the debt away. Now suppose I owe myself $5. Don’t I then have the power to waive my own obligation? But then how could it bind me? An obligation I can escape at will is like a prison with an open gate, a speed limit with no penalty. Such an obligation seems powerless, toothless, imperceptible – in other words, it seems like no obligation at all. This paradox has cast a long shadow. In the 20th century, obligations to oneself “largely disappeared from the radar of academic philosophers” (

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