Close personal relationships require that two people want to have a relationship with each other because of each other's attributes and want each other's lives to go well. These desires, and the belief that their friend shares them, affect the nature of people's actions when they act out of friendship. In contrast, when people act according to moral obligations they base their behaviour on their belief that this is what they ought to do. This thesis is on the relationship between friendship and moral obligation. The accounts of moral obligation used are those given by Kantian ethics, theories of moral rights and Nel Noddings' ethics of care. I examine whether the difference between acting according to friendship and according to duty, moral rights or ethical caring leads to a necessary conflict b.etween acting as a close friend and heeding those forms of moral obligation. I conclude that it is possible always to try to act from duty or according to moral rights and still have close personal relationships. Although it is not possible to act as a close friend and at the same time care ethically, this is because ethical and natural caring are mutually exclusive, rather than because they conflict. Therefore, the requirements of Kantian ethics, rights-based theories and Nel Nodding's ethics of care do not necessarily conflict with the requirements of close personal relationships. Thus, the importance of close personal relationships in our lives cannot be used to argue that Kantian duties or the category of moral rights are either seriously flawed or only relevant in certain areas of our lives. The applicability of duties or moral rights to close personal relationships will, however, be dependent on convincing individuals that certain moral theories genuinely provide good guides for behaviour both within and outside of close personal relationships.