WordNet
n. an obligation arising out of considerations of right and wrong; "he did it out of a feeling of moral obligation"
Wikipedia
The term moral obligation has a number of meanings in moral philosophy, in religion, and in layman's terms. Generally speaking, when someone says of an act that it is a "moral obligation," they refer to a belief that the act is one prescribed by their set of values.
Moral philosophers differ as to the origin of moral obligation, and whether such obligations are external to the agent (that is, are, in some sense, objective and applicable to all agents) or are internal (that is, are based on the agent's personal desires, upbringing, conscience, and so on).
Obligation being a set code by which a person is to follow. (Obligations) can be found by an individual's peers that set a code that may go against the individual's own desires. The individual will express their morality by the person following the set code(s) through seeing it as good to appease society.
Usage examples of "moral obligation".
Above all, a female slave has (in Christian countries) an admitted right, and is considered under a moral obligation, to refuse to her master the last familiarity.
Could they hope that the precepts of philosophy should direct the life, and control the passions, of a despot, whose infancy had been taught to consider his absolute and fluctuating will as the only rule of moral obligation?
Nevertheless, and although they had no moral obligation in my opinion—.
If eventually he abandons it in as good a condition as he found it, his moral obligation will largely consist of making an apology to Gabby and compensating him for gasoline, time, and inconvenience.
She meant to tell him that _her_ moral obligation was to her own people, to Mr.
But that doesn't change the fact that she's his wife, and as her husband he has a deep-seated moral obligation to tell her about this, just as you have a deep-seated moral obligation to tell him.