Is duty an outdated concept?

[XaMcQ]

It seems I never hear anyone talk about duty anymore, outside of the military, and maybe the police/fire rescue community. It used to be much more commonly debated, by nearly everyone. There was duty to country, to family, to God, and to your fellow man, defined by class. Maybe our culture now, with its heavy emphasis on freedom, has mostly discarded the notion of duty.

Have we? Does it matter?

[mawrestler_one25]

It has been wierd for me. Alot of people still believe everyone has a duty as a human being, while others don't. I'm not exactly sure if everyone has the belief that they are on the same page with everyone else, or if everyone just accepts that people have a different belief about that kind of stuff.

Personally I hope its gone and never comes back.

[Odesio]

They might not call it duty, but there are plenty of people who say you have an obligation to society, to help the needy, to make sure everyone is educated, etc. Kant was a big proponent of duty and I think there are a lot of people who subscribe to his beliefs, that there were a set of Categorial Imperatives that are derived from duty.

Marc

[Little Nemo]

It's a consequence of the objectivist mindset. They claim that every problem and every need will inevitably be met by individuals acting in their own self-interest. The reality is that not every problem has somebody who will personally benefit from solving it. Some problems can only be addressed by people who are willing to put aside some degree of their own self-interest and do something for the sake of other people.

[Paul in Qatar]

I see to recall that some author (perhaps Lazaras Long?) called duty "The most important of man's inventions. It is not worth living in places where it does not exist."

I for one do not think is out-of-date. The best people I know have a sense of duty.

[Skald the Rhymer]

I see to recall that some author (perhaps Lazaras Long?) called duty "The most important of man's inventions. It is not worth living in places where it does not exist."

I for one do not think is out-of-date. The best people I know have a sense of duty.


I think you mean Robert A. Heinlein, as LL is his character, but you have the sentiment of the quotation right.

[Elendil's Heir]

Robert E. Lee once wisely said, "Duty is the sublimest word in the language. You can never do more than your duty. You should never wish to do less."

I don't think it's an outdated concept, not at all, but I agree with MGibson that its name or definition has changed over time for many. Nowadays it's most closely associated with the military, police or firefighters, but it has a much broader reach than that. Duty is part of the glue that holds a democratic society together, ideally inspiring the strong to protect the weak, the rich to help the poor, the military to serve the nation, a doctor to cure her patient, etc. It is the laudable and socially-useful belief that we have obligations to others; it is an antidote to selfishness and narcissism.

[Menocchio]

Robert E. Lee once wisely said, "Duty is the sublimest word in the language. You can never do more than your duty. You should never wish to do less."
If Duty is what would drive a man to side with his state in engaging in a bloody civil war to preserve the institution of slavery, then it can go to hell.

Duty is like patriotism. Scratch that, patriotism is really a subset of duty. It's a blind drive to serve a person or institution, regardless of morality or consequences. I think society can evolve better concepts to drive people to do what's right.

[Elendil's Heir]

The tragedy of Lee is that he didn't understand until after Appomattox that his true duty was to the United States - which had educated him, paid him, given him a career and to which he had sworn an oath - and not to Virginia or the Confederacy. Certainly duty, like any other good idea, can be misinterpreted and badly applied. That's not a reason to discard it entirely.

[Algher]

On my honor,
I will do my best to do my duty, to God and my country. To obey the scout law. To help other people at all times. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

My punctuation is lacking, but I did this from memory. I also spent last night teaching it to a bunch of young boys working on earning the first badge in scouting - Tenderfoot.

Sadly, we do NOT teach duty any more. We denigrate those organizations that DO teach duty (in some of the worst examples of throwing out the baby with the bath water). When we add in the "bowling alone" issues in modern society where connection to the community is lost, are we shocked when people no longer feel a duty?

If you have no connection to your community, it gets harder to feel that you have a duty to support it.

[Beware of Doug]

Much wrong has been perpetrated in the name of duty, from Lee to Eichmann to Calley to the present day. We have largely given up on absolute, unquestioning trust in leaders and institutions. And yet those who cling to the idea of duty do little or nothing to address what duty means in such a world. Is it any wonder the concept has fallen into some disdain?

[Colophon]

"Duty" is uncomfortably close to "responsibility". Nowadays we have "rights", not "responsibilities", hence one of the ugliest phrases of modern society: "I know my rights!" :(

[Beware of Doug]

Why do I have the feeling this thread is going to dissolve into cant, pieties and sniping, without getting even close to the meat of the question?

[Crotalus]

Much wrong has been perpetrated in the name of duty, from Lee to Eichmann to Calley to the present day. We have largely given up on absolute, unquestioning trust in leaders and institutions. And yet those who cling to the idea of duty do little or nothing to address what duty means in such a world. Is it any wonder the concept has fallen into some disdain?I don't think that duty has much to do with absolute trust in leaders. My understanding of duty is a sense of obligation one feels to do what one ought to do. I was brought up to believe that I have a duty to make a living, to pay my debts, to pay taxes, to minimize the inconvenience that I cause others, to help the poor, to do something with what I have to better my community, and lots more.

I think that the prevalence of this sense of duty has diminished in my lifetime. I think that it does matter, that a sense of duty improves society.

[Beware of Doug]

I'd tend to agree. But why has that sense of duty diminished? Could it have had anything to do with less trust in authority and institutions? I strongly suspect so.

[Revenant Threshold]

I don't believe in duty as an objective truth - I don't think anyone has any inherent duty to others. OTOH, if you take upon yourself a duty to a person or organisation or whatever then it can be worth something.

I think my problem with duty is the mindless aspect of it. There's a sense that in certain ambiguous situations, you must do your duty regardless. Some people suggest (and have done in this thread) that really when you have a duty to an authority, for example, it's really a duty to help them, rather than just follow orders. Thus refusing an order or not actively helping can actually be doing one's duty. I have no problem with that, but I think that once you get to that level of defining duty based on each situation, you end up with essentially a series of too different actions to be able to sum them up in just "duty". And that's a good thing.

[Crotalus]

I'd tend to agree. But why has that sense of duty diminished? Could it have had anything to do with less trust in authority and institutions? I strongly suspect so.You could well be right. My sense is that the sense of duty began to diminish during the coming of age years for the baby boomers (I was born in 1954). The Viet Nam connection supports your idea; trust in authority definitely eroded during that time. There was also an increase in a belief in the value of personal freedom over conformity at that time.

[lekatt]

I see to recall that some author (perhaps Lazaras Long?) called duty "The most important of man's inventions. It is not worth living in places where it does not exist."

I for one do not think is out-of-date. The best people I know have a sense of duty.

I agree fully.

If you don't feel at least some duty to the family, and society you live in, why live in it?

[Tyrrell McAllister]

Would those who see a decline in the concept of duty take a stab at defining what they mean by "duty"?

If it just means "the obligation to pay debts", financial or otherwise, I don't see the decline. Nor do I see such a decline in the future. Too many of us perceive ourselves to be owed by others. We have a vested interest in keeping the force of the sense of obligation strong. For the concept of duty to disappear, masses of people would have to forget what they think they are owed. Each of us would have to think that others didn't owe us. That seems rather contrary to human nature. Maybe it will happen when technology allows each of us to be self-sufficient to our own satisfaction, but, till then, our self-interest will lead us to keep duty in the forefront of our debtors' consciousness.

I confess I'm tempted to psychologize those who see a decline in duty. Given what I just said, I would expect such sentiments to be expressed perpetually because doing so helps to keep the respect for duty high. Because we perceive others to owe debts us, we are by nature inclined to see threats to these debts even when those threats don't exist. So we pre-emptively start worrying that respect for duty is on the decline, even when there is no objective evidence that this is the case.

[Crotalus]

Tyrrell McAllister - I thought I had taken a stab at defining what I mean by duty in my post above. I was brought up to believe that I have a duty to make a living, to pay my debts, to pay taxes, to minimize the inconvenience that I cause others, to help the poor, to do something with what I have to better my community, and lots more.That includes the idea that when Habitat For Humanity is building or rehabbing a house in my town, I need to grab my tools and go build or rehab a house, not every time they call, but at least some of the time. It means that when I get called for jury duty, I show up. I could get out of it, but I feel that I shouldn't, so I don't. It means that when Red Cross volunteers call me and ask for a blood donation, I go do it. It means that because I make more money than I need to live and save for retirement, that I give some of it away. It means that when there is an election, I vote. There's a lot more, but I'll end up sounding like someone I don't want to sound like.

[Bobotheoptimist]

I've been puzzling over a response for a while now, and still haven't got it right, but I'm going to anyway.

Some people seem to equate "duty" with "blind obedience to the government" or something. I've never seen it as that - At home you have a duty to your family and your community. A good person recognizes a duty to help the less fortunate. In those times that try mens souls, there is a duty to not turn a blind eye and to try to make things better. I don't (personally) feel I have a duty to any god, but if one was to exist it would have a duty to us. Duty doesn't work from weak to strong - a crippled child has no duty to me. A citizen has no duty to the government, but only to the society that the government also has a duty to serve.

The decline of certain organizations reflects a decline in the tendency to talk about such things, but I don't believe one caused the other. I'd fully expect to be mocked if I were to talk about such concepts outside certain groups, and so I don't. Yet every week I see a group of parents concerned that their children learn something of duty, and while it is not my place to teach their children what their duty should be, I can try to show them that I have a duty to them and their generation.

"To help other people at all times", indeed.

I've deleted several mean-spirited comments about various politicians trying to push their idea of duty out to all of us, and since I keep wandering off into those diatribes I'm going to post even though I realize it's only half completed and doesn't really seem to have a conclusion.

[Tyrrell McAllister]

Crotalus, the things you list are particular duties. To me, they all fall under the rubric of "obligations to pay debts", including the debts we owe society for providing for us. For example, I have an obligation to give blood because I owe society for providing, among other things, a store of blood that I myself might need someday.

Now, if duty means the specific things you list, we should be able to answer the OP with objective data (whether blood donations have declined, etc). Respect for these duties may have waxed or waned over the years.

But that's not the topic of this thread as I understand it. The OP asked whether the notion of duty had been discarded. If "duty" is understood to mean "obligation to pay debts", I don't see that. But I suspect that people who see a decline of the notion of duty are talking about something else. Hence my request for a definition.

[Revenant Threshold]

I agree fully.

If you don't feel at least some duty to the family, and society you live in, why live in it? Duty mandates aid. I do not feel duty towards my family or my society; I help because I feel like it, not because I feel it is necessary. I would argue that's "worth" more than a simple "I must do this because I was born here" reasoning.

[Algher]

It appears that the notion of duty has been replaced with a notion of "quid pro quo."

You don't pay taxes because it is your duty, you pay taxes because of the services you receive and the fear of jail.

To me duty goes beyond any actual personal reward. You do it because it is right, not because you will personally benefit from the action.

I pick up trash on trails I may never walk again. I rebuilt houses not just in my area, but in an area hit by Hurricane Katrina. I will never see those people again (probably), I don't live in the area, and it cost me a week of vacation time. But I felt it was my duty.

We seem to have more "what's in it for me" thoughts than "what can I do to help" today. Perhaps that is because of the abuse of the concept of duty when it comes to military service - starting with Korea, not just Vietnam.

How many do things for their community any more?

[Beware of Doug]

One might add: How many feel a sense of community any more? Bowling alone didn't just happen.

I'd argue that communitarian feeling today is strongest in four spheres of life:
1. The political.
2. The religious.
3. The socially aware, most of whom also have some degree of political and/or religious motivation.
4. Inside "own" groups:
a) one's own religious denomination;
b) one's own neighborhood (physical or, in the case of you and I tap tapping on keys at each other, virtual);
c) one's own vocation (especially if not upwardly-mobile white-collar);
and yes, sometimes,
d) one's own political or
e) ethnic cohort.

No aspect of 4. above is really a greater community, like a city or town (even though there are more people on the Dope than in my hometown :eek: ). But I would say "own" groups seem to have sucked up a lot of the general sense of commonweal that people liked so much about the 1930s, '40s, '50s, and certain bits of the '60s.

Which makes me ponder whether duty to community comes most out of simple hardship, and whether the succeeding generations haven't simply Had It Too Easy. But that, in turn, implies we ought to want to make people poorer, hungrier, sicker, less educated, and less free if we're to achieve community and foster dutiful care for it. And I'm not sure what else will do it other than the current veneration of deeply flawed traditional institutions.

[Crotalus]

Crotalus, the things you list are particular duties. To me, they all fall under the rubric of "obligations to pay debts", including the debts we owe society for providing for us. For example, I have an obligation to give blood because I owe society for providing, among other things, a store of blood that I myself might need someday.

Now, if duty means the specific things you list, we should be able to answer the OP with objective data (whether blood donations have declined, etc). Respect for these duties may have waxed or waned over the years.

But that's not the topic of this thread as I understand it. The OP asked whether the notion of duty had been discarded. If "duty" is understood to mean "obligation to pay debts", I don't see that. But I suspect that people who see a decline of the notion of duty are talking about something else. Hence my request for a definition.
I guess you view your motivations for doing various things differently than I view mine. Blood donation, for instance, is hard for me to view as a debt that I owe, and I have never thought of it that way. I have donated at least four times a year for over thirty years. The number of individuals who gave blood at least once actually rose steadily from 1997 to 2002 (http://www.redcross.org/services/biomed/blood/supply/stats.html) , but it's still a relatively paltry 4.3 million people out of a population of 300 million. Seems like a whole lot of people feel they have no debt in that area. As I said, I don't feel that I have a debt to pay there; I'm paid up. I feel that I have an obligation to identify some ways in which I can make a contribution to the local and global community, and then to make some of those contributions.

Voting is an example that I think falls outside of your debt model. It certainly fits my impression that in some areas the notion of duty has diminished. I believe that I have a duty to inform myself about issues and cast informed votes on all issues and candidates. This belief was planted in me by the example of my parents and the education I received. It is a belief that seems less common as time goes on.

[What Exit?]

Tyrrell McAllister - I thought I had taken a stab at defining what I mean by duty in my post above. That includes the idea that when Habitat For Humanity is building or rehabbing a house in my town, I need to grab my tools and go build or rehab a house, not every time they call, but at least some of the time. It means that when I get called for jury duty, I show up. I could get out of it, but I feel that I shouldn't, so I don't. It means that when Red Cross volunteers call me and ask for a blood donation, I go do it. It means that because I make more money than I need to live and save for retirement, that I give some of it away. It means that when there is an election, I vote. There's a lot more, but I'll end up sounding like someone I don't want to sound like.
This is so right. I chose to serve my country for 4 years out of a sense of duty. I give blood as a duty to fellow man; I fight for a cleaner environment out of duty to make a better future for mankind. I vote and serve jury duty because it is the right thing to do. Actions speak louder than words and I do what I can.

It is a deep seated care of duty that drives me. Perhaps like Paul in Saudi, I partially picked it up as a Heinlein fan, but I also got it from my Dad. He did a tour of duty in the Air Force. He believes in this country without thinking the government or any one party is always correct.

It is also our duty to speak up when we feel the government is running amok. I do see many people have abandoned the concept of duty. They ask, “What can the country do for me?” This did seem to turn during Vietnam and Watergate, but I believe duty was less common before WWII also. I suspect that widespread belief in duty by all classes has a shorter history then some might think.

Jim

[Nava]

My family was lesser nobility. I'm always struck by how differently my relatives on that side see the old "private laws" - as "right and duty" and you can't have one without the other - and by how other people see them - "rights", as if they implied no duty.

To me you can't have responsibility without control, nor rights without duty. My right to vote is my duty to vote.

There's some duties of mine that I hate but I still shoulder them. Cos they're my duties and I feel like I'd be failing a long line of duty-bound ancestors if I reneged on them. They never reneged theirs.

[Eonwe]

I'd define it as: "the obligation a person has to make his or her community as strong as possible."

Certainly there are ambiguous situations, and how a person sees or defines community shapes how that person fulfills his/her particular sense of duty.

It is most definitely not a blind deferment to authority, except in as much as obeying authority is good for the community. Soldiers obey their commanders not because it is their duty to bow to authority, but because obeying authority makes their community stronger. The goal is not obedience, but community.

With that definition, I'd say that the notion of duty is directly dependent on how much any given person values and experiences community. People often argue that we're losing community these days, particularly with the rise of technology and the internet. I'm apt to agree, though for some the internet has provided an alternate community, as opposed to destroying community. I do think that, in general, people in virtual communities are likely to not feel the same sense of responsibility/duty that they might towards a more geographically localized community.

[henrijohns]

If duty is given as a reason for anything, yes it is obsolete. Reason should rule any debate. Duty is like the superego, placing the dead hand of tradition over the eyes of the present.

[lekatt]

This is so right. I chose to serve my country for 4 years out of a sense of duty. I give blood as a duty to fellow man; I fight for a cleaner environment out of duty to make a better future for mankind. I vote and serve jury duty because it is the right thing to do. Actions speak louder than words and I do what I can.

It is a deep seated care of duty that drives me. Perhaps like Paul in Saudi, I partially picked it up as a Heinlein fan, but I also got it from my Dad. He did a tour of duty in the Air Force. He believes in this country without thinking the government or any one party is always correct.

It is also our duty to speak up when we feel the government is running amok. I do see many people have abandoned the concept of duty. They ask, “What can the country do for me?” This did seem to turn during Vietnam and Watergate, but I believe duty was less common before WWII also. I suspect that widespread belief in duty by all classes has a shorter history then some might think.

Jim

Having been alive, but young, during WWII, I can assure you duty was paramount in the minds of all. It was a different world then, people really helped each other and were concerned about the defense of our country. Soldiers were very well treated and respected. There was a draft, no one complained, we were in a fight for survival. Even those who were kids like me contributed. After school I collected old newspapers, scrap metal, anything that could be used in the war effort. I also collected money for flowers to put on the doors of families that lost loved ones. We all helped, gave what we could. I remember seeing an elderly woman on a bus stand up and give her seat to a young soldier, when he declined she said: "I am too old to do much, but I can do this, I want you to have my seat." The soldier took the seat with tears in his eyes. I wish we could capture that feeling again, but without the war.

[What Exit?]

Having been alive, but young, during WWII, I can assure you duty was paramount in the minds of all. It was a different world then, people really helped each other and were concerned about the defense of our country. Soldiers were very well treated and respected. There was a draft, no one complained, we were in a fight for survival. Even those who were kids like me contributed. After school I collected old newspapers, scrap metal, anything that could be used in the war effort. I also collected money for flowers to put on the doors of families that lost loved ones. We all helped, gave what we could. I remember seeing an elderly woman on a bus stand up and give her seat to a young soldier, when he declined she said: "I am too old to do much, but I can do this, I want you to have my seat." The soldier took the seat with tears in his eyes. I wish we could capture that feeling again, but without the war.
I know, WWII was a special time in the history of this country. I said in my post "before WWII". I think that the US Citizens sense of Duty peek with WWII and did not wain until the Sixties, Vietnam and Watergate.

Jim