 One serious difficulty with this sort of grounding of special obligations is that it appeals to the psychological states of those to whom the obligations are owed. But consider a case in which the person to whom a promise is made does not expect the one making the promise to comply (Scanlon calls this the case of the Profligate Pal). If such expectations are not raised, are no obligations created? Parents often have little expectation that their children will care for them when they are elderly, but that does not seem sufficient to defeat the claim that children do in fact have special obligations to care for their parents. The defender of the expectations account could try appealing to legitimate even if only hypothetical expectations at this point, but we are still left wondering why I ought to meet expectations that have never actually been raised.