 What is important is not whether we decide to call the demands arising from special relationships ‘moral obligations’ or ‘non-moral obligations.’ What matters is whether these demands are actually reasons, or whether they are mere obligations of role or position, where the latter are really just shorthand for social expectations or understandings. If special obligations are genuine reasons, we need to decide whether they can only arise from relationships or commitments that satisfy independent moral criteria, or whether they can arise from friendships, promises, etc., which are such that we might very well have had moral reasons not to enter or to make. Even, however, friendships, for example, that were morally acceptable for us to enter may place demands upon us that run counter to impartial moral demands. After all, even good people can require help in getting themselves out of bad situations. It is always important to remember, however, that no plausible account of special obligations will view them as always being all-things-considered reasons for action. So even if special obligations can direct us to do that which is wrong or bad on other grounds, it does not immediately follow that we ought to act on our special obligations. It seems quite clear that if I learn that my dearest friend in the world is a serial killer, even though I have an obligation to protect him, I also have very strong reason to turn him in to the police, and that what I ought to do is to act on that latter reason.