The signature I supply -- whether it's a squiggle, an X or my name -- is only proof that I obligate myself to pay the bill.
The consent theorist seems to think that, in the same way, only if I voluntarily transact to obligate myself to comply with the state's commands can I be said to have a duty to comply with the state.
Opening myself to understand someone else's position at a deep level and acknowledging it does not mean that I capitulate to their point of view, nor that I obligate myself to fixing the problem as they see it.
I was obligated now, to myself and to him.
"As the blood runs in the Djugu territory, I see myself obligated to come and seize you.
Yet I've found myself at parties obligated to explain to strangers that I am not Jeb Bush.
"I felt obligated to do it for myself, and to show that it wasn't out of luck that you did well, and I was able to put it out the way I wanted".
Thank God, before I did emerge and did feel obligated to inform others, I was myself informed.
But if such psychological connections are supposed to underlie obligations to take special care of those to whom I bear such connections, then it follows that my strongest special obligations are to myself, and so I am morally obligated to give special weight to my own interests.
I told myself that we are all obligated to prove that sometimes human beings are more than absurd, predictable machines.
I can note that $S$ has committed himself to doing $F$, in the sense of accepting such a commitment, without myself thinking that $S$ is obligated to do it, just as well as I can think that $S$ is obligated although he himself does not recognize it.
