I have a meta-dispute with my nephew about whether a dispute over a loan is a financial issue or a moral one. I would like to hear from a professional philosopher whether or not I am correct in framing that meta-dispute as a moral issue. The fundamental dispute is this: my nephew has had to file for personal bankruptcy twice, and in 2009 had got himself into deep debt again. No institution was willing to loan him money. He now needed $10,000 to avoid bankruptcy. He approached his mother and me, asking to borrow that amount from my mothers (his grandmother's) savings. My mother approved lending the money provided he agreed to pay it back in a regular manner. I was given the task of deciding what was a regular manner. He agreed to the deal that I would write checks to his creditors provided he signed a promise to begin paying the money back at an agreed-upon rate in January 2010. The checks were written, the promise written out and signed. It was not notarized. He never paid anything on the loan. He...

This is a dicey question, especially in light of the fraught family situation. All would be clearer if the original schedule to pay had been notarized and had, therefore been effectively made into a contract, in which case this would be a relatively straightforward case of contract law--but such is not the case. In light of the fact that the agreement to repay the money was a promise to repay--a promise which was broken--in failing to repay the money, your son did do something to undermine his relation to you. I can, therefore, understand the considerable symbolic significance of your request that your son sign a new commitment to repay the money that you loaned him, for in so doing, you seem to think--and I am inclined to agree--that your son will thereby signal his renewed commitment to repay the money to you, thereby at least implicitly recognizing that he had reneged on his initial commitment and harmed your relationship, which can be as it were set to rights and somewhat restored by his...