Duties

a) Definition of Duty

A duty considered objectively, i. e., as an object or thing, is anything one is obliged to do or to omit. Thus we speak of our daily work as our duty. Thus too we say, “It is your duty to do this ;” “It is one’s duty to avoid evil companionship;” “My duties are very numerous.” Ethics takes the term duty subjectively, i. e., as affecting the subject bound by it, and so considered duty is defined as a moral obligation incumbent upon a person of doing or omitting (avoiding) something. Duty is a moral obligation, i. e., an obligation rest- g as a requirement upon a free-will. Hence, the subject of a duty is a person, and only a person. Brute animals do not have duties. We distinguish moral obligation from physical obligation. A Catholic is morally obliged to assist at Mass on Sundays; he is, however, not bound and carried to Mass by force. A moral obligation bind’s the will; and, as we saw in General Ethics (Chap. I, Art. 3, d), the will is not subject to physical compulsion. A duty is the correlative of a right. A right in one imposes a duty on all others of respecting it, of not violating it. Duty, like right, is based on law.

b) Division of Duty i. A duty imposed by the natural law is natural; a duty which comes from positive law is positive. The duty of worshipping God is a natural duty; as also is the duty of preserving one’s life. The latter example shows us that an inalienable right is also a duty. The duty of hearing Mass on certain feast-days is a positive duty, as is the duty of paying taxes. ii. A duty which requires the performance of an act is affirmative; a duty which requires the ommission or avoidance of something is negative. The primary requirement of the natural law, “Do good; avoid evil” gives us, in a single example, an instance of both positive and negative duty. Again we have the matter exampled in the Decalogue: “Honor thy father and thy mother” is an affirmative law enjoining an affirmative duty; while negative duty is enjoined by the law, “Thou shalt not kill.” iii. A duty which obliges in strict justice, and so corresponds to a perfect right, is a perfect or juridical duty. A duty which does not obligate according to justice, but according to charity or some other virtue, and so corresponds to a non-juridical right, is a nonjuridical, an imperfect, or a moral duty. The obligation of paying to an employee the wage agreed upon is a perfect duty, while the duty of giving alms to the needy is a moral duty. iv. There are greater and lesser duties, and where these seem to conflict, the lesser ceases to be a duty, and the greater prevails. That is the greater duty (in an apparent collision) which comes from the higher power, the higher law. Thus duties towards God come before duties towards men, and if a parent forbids his child to hear Mass on Sunday, the duty of obeying parents ceases, in this instance, to bind the child, while the duty towards God prevails. Similarly, if a superior command his subject to steal, the subject has not, in this instance, the duty of obedience, for the duty which comes from the natural law—the duty of justice— prevails. Again: where there is an apparent conflict of duties, that which is concerned with the graver matter prevails, while the other ceases to be a duty. Thus, while one has the duty of giving ordinary care to bodily health and integrity, one ceases to be bound by this duty when the welfare of the soul requires that

\ the body be exposed to danger and even to death. Thus the martyrs violated no duty in allowing themselves to be killed, even though they might have saved their lives by a single word declaring their apostasy: on the contrary, they were strictly bound not to utter that word: the greater duty prevailed; the lesser disappeared and ceased to be. Finally: when there is an apparent conflict of duties, that duty prevails—the other ceasing to be a duty—which arises out of the more solid title or claim. Thus, obedience to parents is a greater duty than obedience to other elders of the household.—To sum up: In an apparent conflict of duties the greater prevails and the lesser ceases to be a duty; and that is the greater duty which comes from the higher law, or is concerned with the graver matter, or is grounded upon the more solid title or claim.

c) Exemption from Duty

Duty is founded upon law. Now there is an old saying that “Necessity knows no law.” What of the value of this saying in moral matters ? When there is an imminent evil that cannot be avoided except by a violation of duty, is one exempted from the duty? In other words, does necessity exempt from duty? We shall presently state principles which answer these questions. But first we must distinguish grades or degrees of necessity, and we must recall a principle enunciated in General Ethics about the binding force of different laws.

There are three degrees of necessity. By necessity, in the present instances, we mean the conflict of a duty and a danger; or, more accurately, we mean the state in which one finds oneself when the performing a duty means enduring an evil. Now, since there are degrees of evil to be endured, there are degrees of necessity. Thus we distinguish extreme necessity, grave necessity, and common or ordinary necessity. One is in extreme necessity when one’s choice lies between duty and death, or between duty and an evil fairly comparable with death. Thus, the Christians taken prisoner by the early persecutors, and faced with the alternative of death or denial of their faith, were in extreme necessity.—One is in grave necessity when one’s choice lies between duty and a notable evil less than death, such as loss of health, good name, or very valuable property. Thus, a man who will be considered an embezzler unless he secretly and unlawfully employs a fund which he holds in trust for another, is in grave necessity.—One is in common or ordinary necessity when one’s choice lies between duty and the enduring of ordinary evils or common hardships. Thus, a man of sound health who must disregard the Lenten fast or endure some weakness and occasional headaches, is in common or ordinary necessity. A word now about law. In General Ethics (Chap. Ill, Art. 1, b, iv) we learned that a negative law of the natural order binds always and at every moment, i. e., admits of no exception in any circumstances whatever. We also learned that an affirmative law binds always, but not at every moment, i. e., its prescription is to be fulfilled, but not in all circumstances; such fulfillment may, in certain circumstances, be postponed till the adverse circumstances are changed. We come now to the principles concerning the exempting force of necessity: i. Common or ordinary necessity never exempts from duty. This principle needs no proof. It is evidently true. If it were otherwise, there would be no such thing as duty at all. For duty is obligation, and obligation ordinarily involves some measure of difficulty or self-denial. If common necessity exempted one from duty, one might escape every duty, for it is quite the easiest thing in the world to find a difficulty or an inconvenience in anything one does not feel inclined to do. ii. No necessity exempts from a negative natural duty. A negative natural duty is a duty that comes from a negative law of the natural order. Now, the natural law is, as we have seen, the Eternal Law, inasmuch as this is known to sound human reason. The Eternal Law itself is the ordinance of All-Perfect Reason, and the things forbidden by the All-Perfect .Reason are forbidden because this infallible Reason sees that they are evil in themselves. And it is a basic principle of Ethics, a primal demand of reason, that what is intrinsically evil may never, under any circumstances, be lawfully done. Hence if a man is faced by the alternative of death on the one hand, and blasphemy, slander, murder, or other naturally forbidden evil on the other hand, the man has no lawful choice but to accept death. iii. Extreme or grave necessity exempts from a natural affirmative duty, provided there is no involved violation of a negative precept of the natural law. The affirmative prescriptions of the natural law require definite acts of virtue as means to man’s last end. But the achieving of man’s end does not require precisely this positive act of virtue at this exact moment of time or in these precise circumstances. Hence, when extreme or grave necessity presses, man may defer the act of virtue until the circumstance of necessity has been changed. Thus, a man is required by the natural law to restore ill-gotten money. But if the original money has been spent and present restitution would mean extreme or grave evil; if, for example, it would mean extreme poverty for the man and his family, loss of social position, and loss of good name, the restitution might be deferred until happier times, or, at least, full payment might be so deferred while the man in question does all that he can to make partial payments and to prepare himself, even at the continuous cost of common hardships and sacrifices, to make restitution in full. If, however, the deferring of restitution would put the person to whom it is due in extreme poverty, then the withholding of payment would be itself a violation of the negative law that forbids us to injure others, and in this case restitution, even at the greatest cost, would have to be made. iv. Extreme or grave necessity exempts from duty imposed by human positive law, provided there is no involved violation of negative natural law. This is quite obvious in view of the principle just explained. For certainly that which is sufficient to exempt from a prescription of the natural law, is a fortiori sufficient to exempt from human positive law.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have learned the nature of duty. We have defined duty as a moral obligation binding a person to do or to omit something. We have seen that duty is the necessary correlative of right. We have distinguished duty as natural, positive, affirmative, negative, perfect, and imperfect. We have also considered greater and lesser duties, and have seen that where these come in conflict, the lesser ceases to be a duty. We have noticed the criteria or tests by which one decides, in a conflict of .duties, which is the greater. We have studied the matter of exemption from duty and have vindicated the following principles: a. Common necessity never exempts from duty. ii. No necessity exempts from a negative natural duty. iii. Extreme or grave necessity exempts from affirmative natural duty, provided there is’ no involved violation of negative natural law. iv. Extreme or grave necessity exempts from the prescriptions of positive law, provided there is no involved violation of negative natural law.