Q&A: Gratitude Toward One Who Is Obligated to Do Good
Gratitude Toward One Who Is Obligated to Do Good
Question
It seems to me that this came up here recently, but I couldn’t find it. Is there a moral obligation for a son to repay goodness to his parents more than to other people? Seemingly, since a father has a moral duty to provide his son with what he needs, then when he fulfills that duty he is not deserving of any repayment, just like one who caused damage and pays for the damage. But it doesn’t make sense to relate to a giving father the way we relate to a damager who paid what he owed. It seems that the moral intuition says two things: the father has a duty (or at least is expected to make the effort) to give to his son, and the son has a duty to give to this giver who is himself obligated to give (and not only for whatever exceeds the minimum required, and not only as honor). How can that be?
Answer
I don’t see the difficulty. The obligation of one who caused damage to pay is a legal one, and therefore the money really belongs to the injured party. So of course there is no reason to feel gratitude to him for paying the damages. But a father’s money does not belong to the son, and this is not a legal obligation but a moral one. If someone fulfills a moral obligation toward you, there is certainly still an obligation of gratitude toward him. I brought here (and also in the article on ontic gratitude) the words of Rabbi Yitzchak Hutner, who explains that giving in the moral sense is the beginning of a chain of reciprocal acts of gratitude, one following another. His assumption is that even if someone is morally obligated to you, you still have an obligation of gratitude toward him.
Of course, if someone gives you something without having any moral obligation, then the gratitude owed is greater. You may ask, if so, why is the obligation of gratitude toward parents the greatest of all? Simply because they gave us far more than anyone else. And usually also far beyond what they were obligated to give. All of this is in addition to the ontic gratitude we owe them for having brought us this far.