Finally, we have obligations to our neighbors that are not invalidated by our neighbor’s failure to fulfill corresponding obligations to us; our relationships are not strictly reciprocal. If my neighbor breaks trust, I am not entitled to do the same, as I would be entitled not to pay her for a service she did not render. As the master metaphor for social relations, “contract” is deeply flawed because human beings are socially situated, their lives intertwined, and their interchange morally “encumbered.”
