Duty
The 'fitting' action that reason calls for in each moment — the Stoic and Ciceronian root of the very idea of duty.
In Stoic ethics, duty (kathēkon, 'the fitting') is the appropriate action whose performance reason can justify — caring for your health, honoring your parents, serving your community. The early Stoics, beginning with Zeno (c. 300 BCE), developed the notion, and Cicero rendered it into Latin as officium in his influential treatise De Officiis (44 BCE). From there it shaped Roman and later European ideas of moral obligation, right down to Kant.
How it traveled
- IliadIos · -700explains
- OdysseyIos · -700explains
- The Third TetralogyAthens · -411explains
- Against CallimachusAthens · -402explains
- History of the Peloponnesian WarAthens · -400explains
- Against DiogeitonAthens · -400applies
- CritoAthens · -399explains
- Against AgoratusAthens · -399explains
- ApologyAthens · -399applies
- Defense Against A Charge Of Taking BribesAthens · -380applies
- PanegyricusAthens · -380explains
- Against NicomachusAthens · -380explains
- ArchidamusAthens · -366explains
- Apollodorus Against PolyclesAthens · -362explains
- CyropaediaAthens · -354explains
- MemorabiliaAthens · -354explains
- EconomicsAthens · -354explains
- On the Cavalry CommanderAthens · -354explains
- AnabasisAthens · -354explains
- AgesilausAthens · -354explains
- Against AndrotionAthens · -354explains
- Constitution of the LacedaimoniansAthens · -354explains
- HieroAthens · -354applies
- On OrganizationAthens · -354applies
- Against AristocratesAthens · -353explains
- First PhilippicAthens · -351explains
- ExordiaAthens · -349explains
- First OlynthiacAthens · -349applies
- Second OlynthiacAthens · -349explains
- LawsAthens · -348explains
Key passages(20)
Liber de philosophorum sectis (epitome ap. Stobaeum) · Arius Didymus
de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum · Cicero
Vitae philosophorum · Diogenes Laertius
Vitae philosophorum · Diogenes Laertius
Dissertationum a Lucio digestarum reliquiae · Musonius Rufus