DUTY - A legal obligation.
An amount assessed on an imported or (less often)
exported item, nearly equivalent to taxes, embracing
all impositions or charges levied on persons or things.
A human action which is exactly conformable to the
laws which require us to obey them.
It differs from a legal obligation because a duty
cannot always be enforced by the law; it is our duty,
for example, to be temperate in eating, but we are
under no legal obligation to be so; we ought to love
our neighbors, but no law obliges us to love them.
Duties may be considered in the relation of man towards
God, towards himself, and towards mankind. We are
bound to obey the will of God as far as we are able
to discover it, because he is the sovereign Lord of
the universe who made and governs all things by his
almighty power, and infinite wisdom. The general name
of this duty is piety, which consists in entertaining
just opinions concerning him, and partly in such affections
towards him and such worship of him as is suitable
to these opinions.
A man has a duty to perform towards himself; he is
bound by the law of nature to protect his life and
his limbs; it is his duty too, to avoid all intemperance
in eating and drinking, and in the unlawful gratification
of all his other appetites.
He has duties to perform towards others. He is bound
to do to others the same justice which he would have
a right to expect them to do to him.
