Great IdeasLiving well
Duty and conscience
What we ought to do, and the inner voice that tells us.
The question
What do we owe to others, to our country and to God? And how do we know what we ought to do?
How the books answer
Oldest first. Each stop is our own short summary of what the author argued; follow the link to the rung for the whole lesson.
c. 441–401 BC
Sophocles, Antigone
Antigone's brother has died fighting against his own city, and King Creon forbids anyone to bury him. Antigone buries him anyway. She says there are unwritten laws from the gods that no ruler can cancel, and Sophocles lets both her duty to family and Creon's duty to the city speak strongly.
“Nor did I think that your decrees were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes given us by the gods.”
written after 399 BC
Plato, Crito
In prison, Socrates' friend Crito begs him to escape. Socrates refuses. He imagines the laws of Athens speaking to him: he has lived under them all his life, so breaking them now would be a wrong, and he holds that one must never do wrong, even in return for a wrong.
“that not life, but a good life, is to be chiefly valued?”
29–19 BC (unfinished)
Virgil, The Aeneid
Aeneas is famous for pietas: duty to his father, his son, his people and the gods. He carries his old father out of burning Troy on his shoulders. Later he leaves Queen Dido, whom he loves, because the gods call him to found a new home in Italy, and Virgil makes us feel the cost.
“Whate’er befalls, your life shall be my care;”
c. AD 170–180
Marcus Aurelius, The Meditations
The emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote notes to himself about doing his work well. Each morning he reminds himself that he will meet rude and ungrateful people, but that they are his kin and he must not be angry. People are made to work together, he says, as hands and feet do.
“For we are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth.”
c. 1600
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Hamlet's father's ghost tells him to avenge a murder. Hamlet is unsure: is the ghost telling the truth, and is revenge right? The play shows a young man torn between a duty laid on him and his own doubts and conscience.
“O cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right.”
1785–1797
Immanuel Kant, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, The Critique of Practical Reason, and the writings on ethics and right
Kant argues that a duty binds everyone, whatever they happen to want. His test: act only on a rule you could will everyone to follow. He adds that we must treat every person as an end, never merely as a tool.
“Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
1843
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
Kierkegaard retells the Bible story of Abraham, asked by God to give up his son Isaac. He asks whether a duty to God could ever stand above ordinary moral duty. He does not make it easy: he says he admires Abraham's faith but cannot understand it, and he wants readers to feel how hard the question is.
1884–1885
Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Huck's conscience, trained by his society, tells him it is his duty to turn Jim in. His heart tells him to protect his friend. Twain shows that conscience can be taught wrong, and Huck chooses the better way while believing he is doing wrong.
For young readers
A duty is something you ought to do, even if you don't feel like it. Feeding your pet, helping at home and keeping a promise are duties.
Sometimes duties pull in different directions. Should you keep a secret for a friend, or tell a grown-up because your friend might get hurt? The great books are full of people trying to find the right thing to do when two duties clash.
Talk about it
- What duties do you have at home? At school?
- Antigone chose her family over the king's law. Was she right? What would Creon say?
- Kant says: only do what you would be okay with everyone doing. Try his test on telling a small lie.
- Huck's conscience told him the wrong thing. How can we tell if our conscience is right?
- Can a promise ever be broken for a good reason?
Where else on the site
- Rules and Laws
- Being a Good Citizen
- Rights and Responsibilities of Citizens
- Right and Wrong
- Guilt and Innocence
Every rung tagged with this idea:
- Sophocles: Oedipus and Antigone
- Plato: The Trial of Socrates
- Hippocrates: On Medicine
- Virgil: The Aeneid
- Marcus Aurelius: Meditations
- Shakespeare: Hamlet
- Pascal: The Provincial Letters
- Racine: Berenice and Phaedra
- Kant: The Moral Philosophy
- Mill: Utilitarianism and Representative Government
- Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling
- Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- Tawney: The Acquisitive Society
- Chekhov: Uncle Vanya
These pages are our own short synthesis, written for families. They were inspired by Mortimer J. Adler's Syntopicon, the index of great ideas in volumes 1 and 2 of Great Books of the Western World, but the questions, summaries and groupings are ours, not the Syntopicon's. Short excerpts come from public-domain translations, credited where they appear.