ABSTRACT
Can someone acting in role be morally permitted, perhaps even obligated, to do something that would be immoral conduct outside the role? I argue that they can and that the most promising avenue for understanding how this can be, and for understanding the nature of the moral permissions created by roles, is through the functional analysis of roles. Freestanding role-obligations, a term I will use to describe role-obligations that have the capacity to overrule ordinary moral obligations, exist because the institutions in which they are embedded accomplish important normative ends. Furthermore, once we understand the role of role-obligations within the broader normative economy of a life, we can see that worries about moral pluralism, one of the central motivations behind the resistance to freestanding role-obligations, should not be a concern. We are stuck with pluralism even before freestanding role-obligations show up on the scene.
