Human being's fundamental duty
Duty is one of those concepts that you can never truly pinpoint,mainly because it takes more than one form, according to the person givingthe definition. It is agreeable that the concept of duty has differentconnotations for different members of society and depends not only on itsself meaning, but also on the person (object, belief, creed, etc.) towardswhom the duty is. For a monk or a priest, duty is towards God and it meansserving him at the best of one's possibilities. A soldier's duty istowards his superiors and towards the state. However, for a simpleindividual, duty may be towards his family, his loved ones, and onlyafterward towards his state and country. Antigone is a significant representative of this last example that Ihave mentioned. Indeed, her first and main duty goes towards her family.Additionally, we may identify that she believes so strongly in her ownmoral laws that she is willing to ignore her civic duty and to die for whatshe believes in. Somewhat different from the Greek system, that put publicand civic duty above private duty, Antigone's system is its reversal: dutytowards her own moral laws- duty towards her family (including duty towards
Pericles however was clearly on the side of public duty. Known as the "merchant of Prato", he became the medievalimpersonation of the modern self- made tycoon. Socrates was a martyr of his creed in knowledge:as we know, he was accused of having practiced blasphemous works and havingfilled the young students with ideas that contravened to the moral order. An efficient and well- organized government, from which thepeople could profit, was a clear sign of success. It is common knowledgeablethat the state represents a rather ambiguous concept and that civic dutymay sometimes become duty towards the state's officials and itsinstitutions. What if these are corrupt or what if they are doing a poorjob' Does this absolve the citizen from its duty' Datini was a powerful merchant that lived in Florence in the 14thcentury. During most of it, hismain duty was towards his business and towards money. Machiavelli wrote his "The Prince" as a type of manual that rulerscould use when addressing the matters of a state. Of course, after his duty towards knowledge came his duty towards parents,towards family and friends. It is interesting to note in this sense that,as in Antigone's case, his system of duties is reversed. Public duty wasgenerally present in the ancient Greek society and included civic duty andduty towards the state and the community. I have mentionedthat the Greeks put an accent on the public duty of each citizen, but it isclear from what I have discussed here above that Socrates chose to put hisown private and individual duties first: duty towards knowledge- dutytowards parents- duty towards family and friends- duty towards the stateand his community (civic duty). However, the fact that he went fromprivate duty (interest for his business) to civic duty (duty for the poor,for his Christian belonging) is quite interesting to note. This may howeverbring forward a rather interesting question. Socrates's duty was, in my opinion, towards knowledge (as a generalconcept).
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Acceptance Essays
