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A duty (from "due" meaning "that which is owing"; fro, deu, did, past participle of ''devoir''; la, debere, debitum, whence "
debt Debt is an obligation that requires one party, the debtor, to pay money or other agreed-upon value to another party, the creditor. Debt is a deferred payment, or series of payments, which differentiates it from an immediate purchase. The ...
") is a commitment or expectation to perform some action in general or if certain circumstances arise. A duty may arise from a system of
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concer ...
or
morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...
, especially in an
honor culture Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...
. Many duties are created by
law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
, sometimes including a codified punishment or liability for non-performance. Performing one's duty may require some sacrifice of
self-interest Self-interest generally refers to a focus on the needs or desires (''interests'') of one's self. Most times, actions that display self-interest are often performed without conscious knowing. A number of philosophical, psychological, and econom ...
.
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...
, an early Roman philosopher who discusses duty in his work “On Duty", suggests that duties can come from four different sources: # as a result of being a human # as a result of one's particular place in life (one's family, one's country, one's job) # as a result of one's character # as a result of one's own moral expectations for oneself The specific duties imposed by law or culture vary considerably, depending on jurisdiction,
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
, and social normalities.


Civic duty

Duty is also often perceived as something owed to one's country (patriotism), or to one's homeland or community. Civic duties could include: * Obey the law * Pay taxes * Provide for a common defense, should the need arise * Enroll to vote, and vote at all elections and referendums (unless there is a reasonable excuse such as a religious objection, being overseas, or illness on polling day) * Serve on a jury, if called upon * Go to the aid of victims of accidents and street crime and testifying as a witness later in court * Report contagious illnesses or pestilence to public-health authorities * Volunteer for
public service A public service is any service intended to address specific needs pertaining to the aggregate members of a community. Public services are available to people within a government jurisdiction as provided directly through public sector agencies ...
s (e.g. life-saving drills) * Donate blood periodically or when needed * Give time to voice advice on a relevant field of expertise, benefits, workplace improvements and on how it is conducted or run *
Duty of revolution In political philosophy, the right of revolution (or right of rebellion) is the right or duty of a people to "alter or abolish" a government that acts against their common interests or threatens the safety of the people without cause. Stated throu ...
against an unjust government


Duties of employment

Specific
obligation An obligation is a course of action that someone is required to take, whether legal or moral. Obligations are constraints; they limit freedom. People who are under obligations may choose to freely act under obligations. Obligation exists when the ...
s arise in the services performed by a minister of a church, by a
soldier A soldier is a person who is a member of an army. A soldier can be a conscripted or volunteer enlisted person, a non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Etymology The word ''soldier'' derives from the Middle English word , from Old French ...
, or by any employee or servant. Examples: *
Dereliction of duty Dereliction of duty is a specific offense under United States Code Title 10, Section 892, Article 92 and applies to all branches of the US military. A service member who is derelict has willfully refused to perform his duties (or follow a given o ...
is an offense in U.S. military law *
Duty to protect In medical law and medical ethics, the duty to protect is the responsibility of a mental health professional to protect patients and others from foreseeable harm. If a client makes statements that suggest suicidal or homicidal ideation, the cli ...
, in medicine * ''
In loco parentis The term ''in loco parentis'', Latin for "in the place of a parent" refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. Originally derived from English common law, ...
'', for schools *
Professional responsibility Professional responsibility is a set of duties within the concept of professional ethics for those who exercise a unique set of knowledge and skill as professionals. Professional responsibility applies to those professionals making judgments, a ...
for lawyers


Legal duties

Examples of legal duties include: *
Duty of care In tort law, a duty of care is a legal obligation that is imposed on an individual, requiring adherence to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foreseeably harm others. It is the first element that must be establi ...
*
Duty of candour In UK public law, the duty of candour is the duty imposed on a public authority 'not to seek to win litigation at all costs but to assist the court in reaching the correct result and thereby to improve standards in public administration'. Lor ...
*
Duty to defend The duty to defend is a contractual indemnitor or liability insurer's duty to defend the insured or indemnified party against claims. It is generally broader than the duty to indemnify and may cover defense against claims where ultimately no dama ...
and
duty to settle A liability insurance company's duty to settle is defined as an implied obligation to by the insurer to a policyholder and to a claimant to attempt "in good faith to effectuate prompt, fair, and equitable settlements of claims in which liability h ...
, in insurance *
Duty to rescue A duty to rescue is a concept in tort law that arises in a number of cases, describing a circumstance in which a party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, re ...
*
Duty to retreat In law, the duty to retreat, or requirement of safe retreat,''Criminal Law - Cases and Materials'', 7th ed. 2012, Wolters Kluwer Law & Business; John Kaplan, Robert Weisberg, Guyora Binder, /ref> is a legal requirement in some jurisdictions th ...
* Duty to report a felony *
Duty to vote Compulsory voting, also called mandatory voting, is the requirement in some countries that eligible citizens register and vote in elections. Penalties might be imposed on those who fail to do so without a valid reason. According to the The World F ...
(in countries with mandatory voting) *
Duty to warn A duty to warn is a concept that arises in the law of torts in a number of circumstances, indicating that a party will be held liable for injuries caused to another, where the party had the opportunity to warn the other of a hazard and failed to ...
*
Fiduciary duties A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal or ethical relationship of trust with one or more other parties (person or group of persons). Typically, a fiduciary prudently takes care of money or other assets for another person. One party, for exam ...
* Duty to care for children as legal guardian (opposite of child neglect) * Special duties created by a
contract A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tr ...
*
In loco parentis The term ''in loco parentis'', Latin for "in the place of a parent" refers to the legal responsibility of a person or organization to take on some of the functions and responsibilities of a parent. Originally derived from English common law, ...
(duty like a parent to child towards nonhuman entities, such as animals, river, environment, etc. e.g. by treating them as
legal person In law, a legal person is any person or 'thing' (less ambiguously, any legal entity) that can do the things a human person is usually able to do in law – such as enter into contracts, sue and be sued, own property, and so on. The reason for ...
.Birds to holy rivers: A list of everything India considers “legal persons”
Quartz (publication), September 2019.


Filial duty

In most cultures, children are expected to take on duties in relation to their families. This may take the form of behaving in such a way that upholds the family's honor in the eyes of the community, entering into arranged marriages that benefit the family's status, or caring for ailing relatives. This family-oriented sense of duty is a particularly central aspect to the teachings of
Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...
, and is known as ''xiao'', or
filial piety In Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoist ethics, filial piety (, ''xiào'') (Latin: pietas) is a virtue of respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors. The Confucian '' Classic of Filial Piety'', thought to be written around the lat ...
. As such, the duties of filial piety have played an enormous role in the lives of people in eastern Asia for centuries. For example, the painting ''Lady Feng and the Bear'', from ancient China, depicts the heroic act of a consort of the emperor placing herself between her husband and a rampaging bear. This is meant to be taken as an example of admirable filial behavior. Filial piety is considered so important that in some cases, it outweighs other cardinal virtues: In a more modern example, "concerns with filial piety of the same general sort that motivate women to engage in factory work in Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and elsewhere in Asia are commonly cited by Thai prostitutes as one of their primary rationales for working in the skin trade". The importance of filial piety can be expressed in this quote from the '' Analects'' of Confucius: "Yu Tzu said, 'It is rare for a man whose character is such that he is good as a son and obedient as a young man to have the inclination to transgress against his superiors; it is unheard of for one who has no such inclination to be inclined to start a rebellion. The gentleman devotes his efforts to the roots, for once the roots are established, the Way will grow there from. Being good as a son and obedient as a young man is, perhaps, the root of a man's character'".


In various cultures

Duty varies between different cultures and continents. Duty in
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
and
Latin America Latin America or * french: Amérique Latine, link=no * ht, Amerik Latin, link=no * pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
is commonly more heavily weighted than in
Western culture Leonardo da Vinci's ''Vitruvian Man''. Based on the correlations of ideal Body proportions">human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise ''De architectura''. image:Plato Pio-Cle ...
. According to a study done on attitudes toward family
obligation An obligation is a course of action that someone is required to take, whether legal or moral. Obligations are constraints; they limit freedom. People who are under obligations may choose to freely act under obligations. Obligation exists when the ...
: : "Asian and Latin American adolescents possessed stronger values and greater expectations regarding their duty to assist, respect, and support their families than their peers with European backgrounds". The deeply rooted
tradition A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
of duty among both Asian and Latin American cultures contributes to much of the strong sense of duty that exists in comparison to western cultures. Michael Peletz discusses the concept of duty in his book ''Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia'': : "Notions of filial duty … are commonly invoked to mobilize the loyalties, labor power, and other resources children in the ostensible interests of the household and, in some cases, those of the lineage clan as a whole. Doctrines of filial piety … attuned to them may thus be a source of great comfort and solace to the elders but they can also be experienced as stressful, repressive, or both by those who are enjoined to honor their parents’ (and grandparents’) wishes and unspoken expectations". An arranged marriage is an example of an expected duty in Asia and the
Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
. In an arranged marriage relating to duty, it is expected that the wife will move in with the husband's family and household to raise their children.
Patrilocal residence In social anthropology, patrilocal residence or patrilocality, also known as virilocal residence or virilocality, are terms referring to the social system in which a married couple resides with or near the husband's parents. The concept of locat ...
is usual; rarely does the man move in with the woman, or is the married couple allowed to start their own household and life somewhere else. They need to provide for the entire family in labor and care for the farms and family. Older generations rely heavily on the help from their children's and grandchildren's families. This form of duty is in response to keeping the lineage of a family intact and obliging to the needs of elders.


Criticisms of the concept


Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
is among the fiercest critics of the concept of duty. "What destroys a man more quickly", he asks, "than to work, think, and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of “duty”?" ('' The Antichrist'', § 11) Nietzsche claims that the task of all higher education is "to turn men into machines". The way to turn men into machines is to teach them to tolerate boredom. This is accomplished, Nietzsche says, by means of the concept of duty. (''
Twilight of the Idols ''Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer'' (german: link=no, Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert) is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, written in 1888, and published in 1889. Genesis ''Twilight of th ...
'', “Skirmishes of an untimely man” § 9.29) Schopenhauer's writings, among them ''
On the Basis of Morality ''On the Basis of Morality'' (german: Ueber die Grundlage der Moral, 1840) is one of Arthur Schopenhauer's major works in ethics, in which he argues that morality stems from compassion. Schopenhauer begins with a criticism of Kant's '' Groundwork ...
'', had a profound effect on Nietzsche and led him to a series of inversions to show that morality was not based in "compassion or sympathy" but in life overcoming itself through the
will to power The will to power (german: der Wille zur Macht) is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. The will to power describes what Nietzsche may have believed to be the main driving force in humans. However, the concept was never systemati ...
. Among these inversions "duty" and "pity," from Kant and Schopenhauer respectively.


Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand, a youthful admirer of Nietzsche, anchored her morality against Kant's notion of duty. "In a
deontological In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, r ...
theory, all personal desires are banished from the realm of morality; a personal desire has no moral significance, be it a desire to create or a desire to kill. For example, if a man is not supporting his life from duty, such a morality makes no distinction between supporting it by honest labor or by robbery. If a man wants to be honest, he deserves no moral credit; as Kant would put it, such honesty is 'praiseworthy,' but without 'moral import.'"Ayn Rand Lexiconduty


See also

*
Deontological ethics In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, ...
* Dharma *
Filial piety In Confucianism, Chinese Buddhism, and Daoist ethics, filial piety (, ''xiào'') (Latin: pietas) is a virtue of respect for one's parents, elders, and ancestors. The Confucian '' Classic of Filial Piety'', thought to be written around the lat ...
* Mitzvah *
Morality Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of co ...


References


External links

*
Duty and Moral Worth
{{Authority control Contract law Deontological ethics Ethical principles Ethics Tort law Virtue