In The Nature of Environmental Stewardship, I proposed three criteria we need to consider to obey a command:

• Importance of the command (e.g., is it optional, a required duty, contextually applied, etc.).
• Goals of the command (e.g., what is the command trying to accomplish).
• Practice of the command (e.g., what you actually do to obey the command).

James Peterson, an ethicist at Roanoke College, came up with a nice alliteration for these three criteria: Priority, Purpose, and Practice. A lot easier to remember ☺. Thanks, Jim!