Moral duty: examples from life and literature

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:41

What is a moral duty, in principle, is known to each of us. However, not everyone thinks about what exactly the concept of moral duty entails. First of all, this is not just an obligation to someone, but a duty to oneself - the ability to perform actions, sacrificing one's own benefits. In essence, moral duty is a manifestation of strength and character. A person devoid of moral qualities is not able to regret, empathize, sympathize.

Moral duty

If we consider this concept extensively, then it can be divided into two parts - a duty to the environment in which a person is located, and a duty to society. However, these two components can also be divided into parts. Duty to loved ones also includes such a concept as one's own, or personal, benefit. Duty to society is usually viewed as an obligation to a certain part of the 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 indicate a moral duty - examples from life are numerous: when a person is attacked and he is faced with a choice - to kill for the sake of protection or not to cross the moral line "Thou sh alt not kill", obeying the currentcircumstances. It is not easy to make the right choice when the instinct of self-preservation drowns out all other feelings.

A mistake costs… a life?

Unfortunately, life often makes its own adjustments, forcing a person to struggle with conflicting feelings. Often situations develop in such a way when it is necessary to choose between legislation and conscience. Most often, such a choice will have to be made by politicians and the military. By adopting a new law that will bring limited benefits to ordinary people, but the effectiveness of a separate caste, or by shooting 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 messages of a disturbing conscience. And this is despite the fact that, both in the basis of the social order and in the legislative framework, the call “Do no harm” remains the main postulate. So it turns out that how correctly a person acted in a particular situation can only be judged after some time has passed.

How it happens

Examples of moral duty are numerous. Among the usual television news, there was a call for help for a man who was in a traffic accident and was dying in hospital due to lack of blood for a transfusion. How many times a week do we hear about such things? Do we see them in the newspapers? This has long become a habit. But in just half an hour, more than three hundred people visited the hospital, who, completely unaware of the victim, came to give the person the opportunity to survive. But the most interesting thing is that the bigsome of them, if not all, when communicating with the press or other interested people, will not boast of their act, but, embarrassed and confused, will begin to assure that they have not done anything unusual or heroic. This is a selfless moral duty from a life where there is no place for personal gain at all.

What kind of internal human controller is he?

Analyzing various situations, we can come to the conclusion that the main internal human controllers are still conscience and moral duty. Examples of the fulfillment of a moral duty from life are endless. One can recall how hopelessly ill people agreed to donate he althy organs to other patients, how people threw themselves into ice water in winter to save someone who fell through the ice, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a person or an animal.

As during the terrorist attacks, the teachers hid the children, themselves dying from the bullets of the invaders. Beslan (school seizure), Volgograd (explosion at the railway station), explosions in trains and aircraft hijackings, military men who fell on a grenade with their chest 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 who are not only unknown to moral principles, but also alien.

Sung by poets

Poets of different generations sang the fulfillment of moral duty. Many examples can be cited from the literature, starting with works written centuries ago. Seventeenth century - J. Racine,Phaedra and Hippolyte. The stepmother, who is in love with her stepson, is trying with all her might to win his favor, but is refused. The offended woman pours mud on the young man, driving him to suicide, since the moral duty of the young man did not allow him to have an affair with his father's wife. Nineteenth century - N. Leskov, "The Man on the Clock". The protagonist is torn between two desires - to help a man drowning in an ice hole, or to remain at his post, as required by his military duty. As a result, the moral side of the soldier outweighs, for which he is subsequently punished with severe flogging.

How moral postulates have changed

Over time, the concept of morality has changed a lot. Examples of moral duty can be considered from ancient times, when talion law was in effect. It consisted in the fact that people could avenge a crime as cruelly as it was strong. However, such a right could only be applied to people from another community.

Further, the golden rule of morality came into use - behave with people the way you want them to do with you in return. Today we are increasingly coming to the conclusion that morality is an unwillingness to bring pain to other people, it is opposition to any evil, it is a complete rejection of depravity and ubiquitous virtue. Each of us must be sure that he is doing the right thing (not in the way that is convenient for himself, namely, right in relation to others) and completely disinterestedly.

People and morality

Executionmoral duty (from the literature we have given examples above) often seems a bit sky-high, saturated with heroism and patriotism. However, this is not the case. The fact is that people who are able to develop this quality in themselves most often prefer to remain in the shadows, not promoting themselves on the pages of newspapers and not flashing in television reports and television programs. We can live for years next to a person who once saved the life of another, and not know about it.

This is another indispensable quality - modesty. Indeed, being proud of the fact that he helped another, a person, in fact, revives a sense of pride in himself, and there should not be such sides in morality. And morality should also live in one's own heart, and not be dictated by someone from the outside. It is very easy to fall under the beliefs of a person interested in this, subsequently making many fatal mistakes. It is important to know that morality is a whole system of mutual relations built on sincere feelings and selfless impulses.