Are we responsible to those who rely on us without our concent?

Question

Sometimes we are presumed, without any prompt on our side, to have certain allegiances, do certain things, even sometimes to hold certain opinions. For example, the presumption to have allegiance to the government of the country of your birth. And rejection of such presumed allegiances is often met with extreme prejudice.

On the other hand, contractual obligations presuppose consent of both sides.

Thus the question: are we obligated to honour the allegiances and duties that others assumed on our behalf, to which we never consented to?

EDIT: some clarifications of the question, based on comments.

The question is more about moral obligations than legal ones. Although I didn't phrase it clearly, I am interested in social as well as state-imposed obligations.

There are plenty of laws that would punish you for doing things that nobody would consider unethical, such as using force to defend somebody other than yourself from an assailant in some states, etc. There are also plenty of actions that most people would consider unethical, although they are not illegal.

A different way to phrase this: does other people's expectations of what our duty is imposes that duty?

Examples, some from comments:

Certain allegiances are expected within a family. Though shall not covet thine brother's wife. Certain allegiances are expected within social groups, such as colleges. Though shall not cheer for the opponent team. Certain "fairness" duties are socially expected by citizens from the officers of the State. There are extensive expectations by parents about school teachers' behaviour. Is a teacher obligated to comply to what the parents would consider "good moral character?"

Another set of expectations can be produced by your own actions. Suppose you got into a habit of giving daily a couple of bucks to a homeless at the corner on your way to work. It's possible that the homeless grew to rely on your daily donation. Does his expectation that was produced by your action imply a moral obligation for you to continue your daily charity? Are we "responsible for those we tame?"

Answer 1

Michael, you've noted in a comment that legal and moral obligations are distinct, so the obvious answer to your question is:

We are legally obligated to honour the legal obligations imposed on us by the government, but are only morally bound to execute our moral obligations. To the extent that the legal obligations coincide with moral ones, we are morally bound to execute them, to the extent that they don't, we are not morally obligated to execute these immoral, yet legally imposed, ones.

Just to be clear, I consider the "presumed allegiance" referred to in this question to be a legal obligation, which may (or may not) lead to morally just actions.

In this way of thinking of things, moral considerations come first; then one assess whether the legal obligations align with the moral ones. If they do, then your course of action is obvious, if they don't you have a moral obligation to take the moral position. In some cases the presence of the non-moral (legal) obligations may reduce our culpability for failing to take the morally preferred option, since, especially in the legal case, there are pretty direct coercive forces at play.

This line of thought can be extended to other types of situations, e.g. we have social obligations to conform to the social norms of our community. These social norms may or may not have any moral aspect to them. For those that don't, e.g. some aspects of table manners, there is no moral imperative to conform.

Edit in response to edited question (and some comments).

This answer is somewhat unsatisfying due to the nature of the question, which is, "if you have these non-moral obligations, to what extent are you morally obligated to uphold them?", which has an obvious answer.

It's pretty clear that there is no direct/logical/necessary relationship between what is legally or socially proscribed and what is moral; most people would claim that some things are moral whether or not they are legal or socially accepted etc. Thus these external influence are separate from actual moral responsibilities.

The fact that these obligations are implicit does have significance for this: If you had given your word to adopt/adhere to the strictures, then you have at least the modicum of moral responsibility to uphold your word. However, since this question posits that these commitments have not been made, it is more clear that the external obligations are not really moral ones.

Where I see the intersection is that these legal/social forces are a coercive force that can affect an individual's moral assessments. The usual example is when a criminal threatens you (or other individuals) with bodily harm unless you do something immoral. Most moral systems account for this type of external coercion by reducing your moral responsibility in these situations. I'd say that you can apply this same approach in order to account for the coercive effects of legal/social strictures as well.

Of course, all this is predicated on (some degree) of objective moral truths. If you wanted to adopt the position of moral relativism, then you'd be deriving the moral truths from exactly these kinds of social/legal forces.

Answer 2

You are allowed to change your citizenship at the age of majority. At this point you can choose country that fits your needs and is willing to accept you as citizen at which point it's consent of both sides.
Before you are major you are not allowed to make any legally binding contracts, your parents deal with that side of your live, and this is already separate question. I cannot judge if it is moral, but it certainly is convenient.