duty

Moral obligation experienced as a felt commandment of the moral law. Moral conflicts occur where a number of duties make apparently irreconcilable demands on us.

The Stoics in ancient Greece and Immanuel Kant in Germany (who coined the concept of the categorical imperative) are the moral philosophers who have placed greatest emphasis on duty. Duty is strongly emphasized in Confucianism (especially duty to the state and to ancestors) and in Japanese culture, where it is divided into obligations (on) that can and therefore must be repaid, and continuous obligations, such as those to parents and country.