[2] Obligations are generally granted in return for an increase in an individual's rights or power.
The term obligate can also be used in a biological context, in reference to species which must occupy a certain niche or behave in a certain way in order to survive.
In finance, "obligated" refers to funds within authorised budgets which have become legally binding expenditure commitments e.g. through letting a contract.
Rationalists argue people respond in this way because they have a reason to fulfill the obligation.
[4] According to the sanction theory, an obligation corresponds to the social pressures one feels, and is not simply derived from a singular relationship with another person or project.
In the rationalist argument, this same pressure adds to the reasons people have, thereby strengthening their desire to fulfill the obligation.
[4] Sociologists believe that obligations lead people to act in ways that society deems acceptable.
John Rawls argues that people do have political obligations because of the principle of fairness.
[12][13] and in relation to the Statute of Frauds, Lord Justice Maurice Kay commented in 2009 thatA guarantee is, in the words of the Statute, a promise "to answer for the debt default or miscarriage of another person".
[14]The Appeal Court observed in 1973 that the determination of whether a document is a guarantee or an indemnity, or whether it imposes a secondary or a primary liability, will always depend upon "the true construction of the actual words in which the promise is expressed".