Often, moral duty and legal duty coincide, but it can also happen that morally obedient behavior is not morally obedient from a legal point of view, or even that legal duty and moral duty conflict with each other, in the sense that the behavior of one is different from the other. [5] The personal decision not to comply with a legal obligation because it contradicts a moral duty considered to prevail takes the name of conscientious objection: it is only in exceptional cases that legal systems allow it to be invoked in order not to suffer the sanctions resulting from the violation of the obligations imposed by their norms. Duty[2] is also often perceived as something that is due to the country (patriotism), the homeland or the community to which one belongs. Some of the civic duties could be: The legal obligation is the subjective legal position of the legal entity to which a certain behavior must be imposed by a legal norm. The duty can be “positive” if the behavior imposed by the norm is to do or give, or “negative” if it consists of not doing. In the first case, it is also called mandate, in the second case, prohibition. There is a widespread idea among scholars that duty is the fundamental subjective legal position of law. In fact, it is easy to understand the other subjective situations that the rules of conduct (or primary) attribute to duty: the subjective right or the related legal situation in the legal relationship. The ability to have behavior is rather the opposite of the duty not to have the behavior (on the other hand, according to an axiom of deontic logic, the duty to have behavior implies the ability to maintain it). It is more problematic to take into account the subjective situations assigned by the rules of jurisdiction (or secondarily). Those who consider it possible do so, for example, by asserting that norms that confer powers are norms that impose indirectly formulated duties: to attribute power over another to a subject is to impose on him the duty to observe the norms proclaimed from the beginning.

Legal norms that impose obligations are “prescriptive codes of conduct.” A breach of an obligation against which the legal system imposes a sanction is said to be illegal. The contrast between this behaviour and the norm that sets the duty is called illegality. Nietzsche asserts that the task of all higher education is to “turn people into machines.” The way to turn people into machines is to teach them to tolerate boredom. This, according to Nietzsche, is realized through the concept of duty. (The Twilight of the Idols or How to Philosophize with Hammers, “Skirmishes of a Premature Man” § 9:29.) There will be a legal obligation if the violation of the relevant rule involves some kind of sanction or punishment. While there are several ways to classify legal obligations, the most common classification is one that classifies them according to their purpose or usefulness. Schopenhauer`s writings, including On the Basis of Morality, had a profound effect on Nietzsche, leading him to a series of twists and turns to show that morality is not based on “compassion or sympathy,” but on a life that surpasses itself by the will to power. Among these reversals “duty” and “piety” of Kant and Schopenhauer respectively. Cicero, one of the first Roman philosophers to analyze duty in his work De Officiis (On Duties), suggests that duties can come from four different sources:[1] The legal obligation consists of three elements: subject, object, and legal obligation. For example, in a sales contract, the elements would be as follows: a legal obligation is an obligation that must be respected by all individuals, otherwise its violation will result in a sanction or punishment. Specific obligations imposed by law or culture vary considerably, depending on jurisdiction, religion and social norms. In addition to a legal obligation, which has a legal norm as a reference, we also speak of a “moral” (or ethical) norm, which has a moral norm as a reference.

However, there is no agreement on the distinguishing features between the two concepts, which reflect the age-old question of the distinction between morality and law. There are those who distinguish the legal duty from the moral duty because the latter, unlike the former, would have the divine law as a reference. Others believe that moral duty is directly related to conscience, as an internal judge independent of externally established canons and rules. But there are also those who, following Hans Kelsen, find the characteristic between moral duty and legal duty in the fact that only the violation of the latter entails the necessary application of a sanction. The philosopher Ayn Rand, a young admirer of Nietzsche, anchored her morality against Kant`s conception of duty. In a deontological theory, all personal desires are banished from the realm of morality. A personal desire has no moral significance, neither the desire to create, nor the desire to kill. For example, if a man does not provide for himself out of duty, this morality does not distinguish between maintenance by honest work or theft. If a person wants to be honest, he deserves non-moral recognition; as Kant would say that honesty is “praiseworthy” but without “moral significance”. [6] In most cultures, children are expected to take on family-related tasks.

This may take the form of behaviour that defends the family`s honour in the eyes of the community, enters into arranged marriages that benefit the family`s status, or cares for sick relatives. This family-oriented sense of duty is a particularly central aspect of Confucius` teachings and is called xiao or filial piety. As such, the duties of filial piety have played an important role in the lives of the peoples of East Asia for centuries. For example, the painting of Lady Feng and the Bear of Ancient China depicts the heroic act of a wife of the emperor standing between her husband and an angry bear.