What is moral duty, in principle, is known to each of us. However, not everyone thinks about what exactly carries the concept of moral duty. First of all, this is not just an obligation to someone, but an obligation to oneself - the ability to do things by sacrificing one's own goods. In essence, moral duty is a manifestation of strength and character. A person deprived of moral qualities is not able to regret, empathize, and compassion.
Moral duty
If we consider this concept extensively, it can be divided into two parts - duty to the environment in which the person is located, and duty to society. However, these two components can also be divided into parts. Duty to loved ones also includes such a concept as personal or personal benefit. Duty to society is usually seen as an obligation to a specific part of a social group. In life, situations often arise when you have to choose between duty and conscience, sometimes these concepts radically contradict the current situation. It is easy to identify a moral duty - there are many examples from life: when a person is attacked and he has a choice to kill for protection or not to cross the moral line of “Do not kill”, subject to current circumstances. It is not easy to make the right choice when the instinct of self-preservation drowns out all other feelings.
The mistake is worth … life?
Unfortunately, life often makes its own adjustments, forcing a person to fight with conflicting feelings. Often situations arise in such a way when you need to choose between legislation and conscience. Most often, such a choice has to be made by politicians and the military. Adopting a new law that will bring limited benefits to ordinary people, but the effectiveness of a separate caste, or by shooting at a person because it is necessary - such was the order - in both cases, a person fulfills his moral duty, forgetting for a while about the promises of a disturbing conscience. And this is despite the fact that both the basis of the public system and the legislative framework remain the main postulate of the call “Do no harm”. So it turns out that how correctly a person acted in a particular situation can be judged only after some time has passed.
How does it happen
Examples of moral duty are numerous. Among the usual television news, there was a call for help to a person who was involved in a traffic accident and was dying in the hospital due to a lack of blood for transfusion. How many times a week do we hear about such things? See them on the pages of newspapers? It has long been familiar. But in just half an hour, more than three hundred people visited the hospital, who, not knowing the victim at all, arrived to give the person the opportunity to survive. But the most interesting thing is that most of them, if not everyone, while communicating with the press or other interested people will not boast of their actions, but, embarrassed and confused, will assure that they have not done anything unusual or heroic. This is an unselfish moral duty from life, where there is absolutely no place for personal gain.
What is he - an internal human controller?
Analyzing various situations, we can conclude that conscience and moral duty nevertheless act as the main internal human controllers. Examples of fulfilling a moral duty in life are endless. You can recall how hopelessly sick people agreed to give healthy organs to other patients, how people threw themselves into ice water in winter to save a person who had sunk under the ice, and it doesn’t matter if this is a person or an animal.
As teachers hid children during terrorist acts, they themselves died from the bullets of the invaders. Beslan (seizing the school), Volgograd (explosion at the station), explosions in trains and hijacking of aircraft, soldiers falling on a grenade with their breasts to save their colleagues - in each of these real situations there were people who fulfilled their moral duty. Unfortunately, in modern society there are enough people for whom moral principles are not only unknown, but also alien.
Sung by poets
Poets of different generations praised the fulfillment of moral duty. From the literature, many examples can be given, starting with works written centuries ago. The seventeenth century - J. Racine, "Fedra and Hippolytus." The stepmother, who is in love with the stepson, is trying with all his might to win his favor, but is refused. The offended woman pours mud on the young man, leading him to suicide, since the moral duty of the young man did not allow him to enter into a relationship with his father’s wife. The nineteenth century - N. Leskov, "Man on the Clock." The main character is torn between two desires - to help a person drowning in an ice hole, or to remain at the post, as required by his military duty. As a result, the soldier’s moral side outweighs, for which he is subsequently punished with brutal flogging.
How did moral postulates change?
Over time, the concept of morality has changed dramatically. Examples of moral duty can be considered from ancient times, when the talion law acted. It consisted in the fact that people could avenge a crime as cruelly as it was strong. However, this right could only be applied to people from another community.
Further, the golden rule of morality came into use - to behave with people the way you want them to act in response to you. Today we increasingly come to the conclusion that morality is an unwillingness to bring pain to other people, it is a confrontation with any evil, it is a complete rejection of perversity and omnipresent virtue. Each of us must be sure that he is doing the right thing (not the way he is comfortable with himself, but the right thing in relation to others) and completely disinterested.
