 Consistent with his orientation in metaphysics, Baumgarten is an original moral philosopher within the Wolffian tradition. He is notable, for instance, for the centrality of the notion of obligation in his ethics. Wolff had framed a novel concept of obligation, rooted in the nature of things and actions themselves rather than the will of a sovereign, in accordance with which an obligation arises simply insofar as some motive is naturally connected to an action (GE §9). Yet, whereas Wolff only treats obligation briefly before considering specific duties, in Baumgarten’s hands the problem of obligation becomes the unifying theme for ethics, particularly in his Initia (Schwaiger 2009). Moreover, while Baumgarten accepts Wolff’s ethical perfectionism, in contrast with Wolff he downplays the connection between perfection and happiness, perhaps in response to Pietist denunciations of Wolff’s perfectionism as a veiled form of hedonism (Schwaiger 2011: 163ff; Bacin 2015). A last innovation is Baumgarten’s consideration of the ways in which ethical systems themselves can be flawed in that, for instance, they make a virtuous condition too easily attainable (flattering ethics) or set the bar for virtue too high for human nature (chimerical ethics) (Thorndike 2008; Dyck 2012).