Towards a Minimal Concept of Legal Obligation

In order to understand what an obligation is it seems as a first step necessary to determine to which kind of entities it belongs to. It is a difference whether one conceives of an obligation as a social practice or as an abstract object. Although the concept “abstract object” enjoys widespread support, it is, at least for obligations, misleading because they are not an abstraction of empirical or social facts. Instead, they belong to the Ought which cannot be deducted from an Is. Moreover, there can be quite concrete and hence non-abstract obligations such as the duty to deliver a particular apple to a particular place. The paper will therefore argue that obligations shall be conceived of as ontologically ideal (“ideational”) entities and explore the consequences thereof.