The entanglements that bind us to each other in specific and historical bonds of right and duty have no secure place in their calculations. Of course others do not matter to us equally, and the many claims on us may be more or less demanding, more or less rewarding, more or less strong. But when it comes to considering what matters in itself—in other words, what morality demands of us—such facts, for the consequentialist mind-set, sink into the background, to reappear only as a qualification to other and more abstractly grounded features of our condition.
