Duty

Duty (from "due" meaning "that which is owing"; Old French: deu, did, past participle of devoir; Latin: debere, debitum, whence "debt") is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment or obligation to someone or something. The moral commitment should result in action; it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition. When someone recognizes a duty, that person theoretically commits themself to its fulfillment without considering their own self-interest. This is not to suggest that living a life of duty entirely precludes a life of leisure; however, its fulfilment generally involves some sacrifice of immediate self-interest. Typically, "the demands of justice, honor, and reputation are deeply bound up" with duty.

Cicero, an early philosopher who discusses duty in his work “On Duty", suggests that duties can come from four different sources:

  1. as result of being human
  2. as a result of one's particular place in life (one's family, one's country, one's job)
  3. as a result of one's character
  4. as a result of one's own moral expectations for oneself

Various derivative uses of the word have sprung from the root idea of obligation, a concept involved in the notion of duty; thus it is used in the services performed by a minister of a church, by a soldier, or by any employee or servant.

Many schools of thought have debated the idea of duty. While many assert mankind's duty on their own terms, some philosophers have absolutely rejected a sense of duty.

Duty has to be accepted and understood on the basis of one's foundation of sense and knowledge. Therefore, duty and its manifestations vary with values from culture to culture.

Read more about Duty:  Civic Duty, Filial Duty, Duty in Various Cultures

Famous quotes containing the word duty:

    “They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
    They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
    They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
    Not one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
    Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of
    years ago,
    Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.”
    —Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

    “But oh, not the hills of Habersham,
    And oh, not the valleys of Hall
    Avail: I am fain for to water the plain.
    Downward, the voices of Duty call—
    Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main,
    The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn,
    And a myriad flowers mortally yearn,
    And the lordly main from beyond the plain
    Calls o’er the hills of Habersham,
    Calls through the valleys of Hall.”
    —Sidney Lanier (1842–1881)

    “The duty of the State toward the citizen is the duty of the servant to its master.... One of the duties of the State is that of caring for those of its citizens who find themselves the victims of such adverse circumstances as makes them unable to obtain even the necessities for mere existence without the aid of others.... To these unfortunate citizens aid must be extended by government—not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty.”
    —Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)