MORAL OBLIGATION. A duty which one owes, and which he ought to perform, but which he is not legally bound to fulfil.
These obligations are of two kinds : 1st, those founded on a natural right : as, the obligation to be charitable, which can never be enforced by law. 2d, those which are supported by a good or valuable antecedent consideration : as, where a man owes a debt barred by the act of limitations, or contract ed during infancy ; this cannot be recovered by law, though it subsists in morality and conscience. A doctrine prevailed for some time in the courts of England and this coun try that an express promise made in dis charge of an antecedent moral obligation cre ated a valid contract, and the contract was then said to be supported by the previous moral obligation ; Cowp. 290; 5 Taunt. 36; Willing v. Peters, 12 S. & R. (Pa.) 177. This opinion appears to have been entertained by Lord Mansfield ; 5 Taunt. 36. In a note to Wennall v. Adney, 3 B. & P. 249, this idea was controverted, and in Eastwood v. Ken yon, 11 Ad. & B. 438 (6 Eng. Rul. Cas. 41), the notion of the validity of a moral consider-, ation was finally overruled. The rule ex isted, if it does not still exist, in Pennsyl vania, as late as Hemphill v. McClimans, 24 Pa. 367, and see Holden v. Banes, 140 Pa. 63, Atl. 239; Hollingsworth, Contr.
Promises by an Infant, after coming of age, to pay a debt incurred during infancy, of a bankrupt to pay a debt discharged in bankruptcy, and of a debtor to pay a debt barred by the statute of limitations, are sometimes considered as instances of con tracts supported by moral considerations ; as is a note given as surety by wife for husband, renewed after his death ; Rathfon v. Locher,
215 Pa. 574, 64 Atl. 790. But the promise of the infant is rather a ratification of a con tract which was voidable, but not void. The promise of the bankrupt operates as a waiver of the defence given to the bankrupt by stat ute, the certificate of discharge not having extinguished the debt, but merely baying pro tected the defendant from an action on it, by means of the statutory bar. In both of these cases the action is founded upon the original debt. The case of a promise to pay a debt barred by the statute of limi tations is said to stand upon anomalous, grounds. The true explanation of the doc trine seems to be that it was an ingenious device for evading the statute adopted at a time when the courts regarded it with dis favor. Here too the action is upon the old debt, and not upon the new promise; Haley v. Jewett, 3 Mete. (Mass.) 439. The subject is learnedly treated by Mr. Langdell (Contr. § 71). Some cases have held a feme bound by a promise after coverture to pay a debt contracted during coverture ; Hemphill v. McClimans, 24 Pa. 371; see Ewell, L. C. Coy. 332.
Under the English Bankruptcy Act of 1869, debts discharged cannot be revived by a promise made after adjudication ; and under the Infants' Relief Act of 1874, any promise made after full age to pay a debt contracted during infancy is void.
The discharge of a merely moral obliga tion of another will not create a debt, un less made in pursuance of an express re quest or actual agreement to that effect; Leake, Contr. 86.