1 Obligations of Gratitude and Correlative Rights * Tony Manela, Georgetown University When one person performs an act of benevolence for another, we say the latter owes the former gratitude. I take it that gratitude, as the called-for response to an act of benevolence, includes inclination to certain behaviors—behaviors aimed at advancing the wellbeing of the benefactor. 1 Some of these called-for behaviors are referred to as duties or obligations 2 of gratitude. About such obligations of gratitude, three propositions are widely accepted: 1) The Obligation Platitude: gratitude entails a set of strict obligations—things a beneficiary must do; 2) The Directionality Platitude: these obligations are owed to the benefactor; and 3) The No-Right Platitude: the benefactor does not have a right to the fulfillment of these obligations. These three platitudes present a tension. A tradition in law and moral philosophy dating back to the natural lawyers holds that directed obligations always correlate to rights held by the person to whom the obligation is due. 3 My strict obligations to you to keep a * Published in Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol. 5. 1 Roslyn Weiss denies this, arguing that gratitude is merely a feeling, something like a well-wishing for a benefactor (Roslyn Weiss, "The Moral and Social Dimensions of Gratitude," The Journal of Southern Philosophy XXIII, no. 4 (1985). But as others as far back as Aristotle have noted, one can have feelings that fail to motivate; and a beneficiary who feels goodwill for his benefactor but is unmoved to help her (say, to acquiesce to her request for a reasonable favor) falls short of gratitude. Aristotle, "Nicomachean Ethics," The Complete Works of Aristotle, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 1166b30-67a20. I will proceed, then, on the premise that gratitude entails certain behaviors. 2 I will treat the terms “duty” and “obligation” as synonymous. 3 See, for instance, Samuel Pufendorf, "Two Books of the Elements of Universal Jurisprudence," ed. Thomas Behme (http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/2220: 2009); Thomas Ried, Essays on the Active Powers of Man; T. Rutherforth, Institutes of Natural Law: Being the Substance of a Course of Lectures on Grotius De Jure Belli Et Pacis (W. and J. Neal, 1832); W. Paley, The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy (R. Faulder, 1799); Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, "A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations, with Supplements and a Discourse by George Turnbull," ed. Thomas Albert and Peter Schröder (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008) (accessed 6/23/2014). In this paper, I will be concerned primarily with