Duties:The term duties refers to those actions that an individual must perform to be considered moral.
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The term duties refers to those actions that an individual must perform to be considered moral. For instance, everyone might agree that one has a duty to support one’s parents if able to do so; one has a duty to obey the law (unless it is an immoral law); and a police offi cer has a moral and ethical duty to tell the truth on a police report. Duties are what you must do in order to be good.
Other actions, considered superogatories, are commendable but not required. A Good Samaritan who jumps into a river to save a drowning person, risking his or her own life to do so, has performed a superogatory action. Those who stood on the bank receive no moral condemnation, because risking one’s life is above and beyond anyone’s moral duty. Of course, if one can help save a life with no great risk to oneself, a moral duty does exist in that situation.
Police offi cers have an ethical duty to get involved when others do not. Consider the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. One of the most moving images of that tragedy was of po- lice offi cers and fi refi ghters running toward danger while others ran away. This professional duty to put oneself in harm’s way is why we revere and pay homage to these public servants. Many civilians also put themselves in harm’s way in this disaster, and because they had no professional duty to do so, they could be said to be performing superogatory actions.
There are also imperfect duties, general duties that one should uphold but do not have a specifi c application as to when or how. For instance, most ethical systems support a general duty of generosity but have no specifi c duty demanding a certain type or manner of generos- ity. Another imperfect duty might be to be honest. Generally, one should be honest, but, as we will see in Chapter 2, some ethical systems allow for exceptions to the general rule.