This paper addresses an alleged paradox regarding gratitude—that a duty of gratitude is odd or puzzling if not paradoxical. The gist of our position is that in prototypical cases, gratitude expression falls under a distinctive deontic category we call morally expected—which has a corresponding contrary deontic category we call morally offensive. These categories, we maintain, need recognition in normative ethics to make proper sense of the moral status of gratitude expression and other morally charged restrictions on action, and likewise to make proper sense of the moral status of failures to abide by such restrictions. We argue for our view largely on phenomenological grounds.

这篇论文讨论了一个关于感恩的悖论——感恩的责任即使不是自相矛盾的，也是奇怪的或令人费解的。我们立场的要点是，在典型案例中，感恩表达属于我们称之为道德预期的独特道义范畴——它具有相应的相反道义范畴，我们称之为道德上的冒犯。我们认为，这些类别需要在规范伦理中得到承认，以正确理解表达感激之情和其他道德上的行为限制的道德地位，并同样正确理解未能遵守这些限制的道德地位。我们主要基于现象学的理由来支持我们的观点。