Duties were originally conceived through evolutionary means, as modes of encouraging action which serve to benefit the individual, family, group, or species survival and propagation. As groups and civilizations formed the duties of its individuals became expected as they contributed to the success of the group, and the survival of the family. It is easy to imagine how incentive played a role in forming duties. Both punishment and reward could have been reinforcing of the earliest duties, both socially and naturally. With the advent of language these duties became conceptualized and thus put into the social context, reinforced further through culture, formed as taboos by not conforming, and at the advent of a formal governing system, laws were instantiated to support these norms. Communities in their whole, and in their individuals, either benefited or suffered by the instantiated norms or laws, in relation to the product of which, they became modified in an evolutionary manner. Where it became a net benefit to the society through the adoption of responsibility and the carrying out of one’s duties to family, community and state, the expectation and its action became reinforced. In today’s age many duties have become almost universal as they are found across the globe with a surprising amount of consistency. We have political systems that enforce social contracts, holding the individual responsible for promises, and we have developed cultural and social expectations which judge the individual based on the duties he does or does not responsibly carry out.

As a caveat, deviations do exist as progressive viewpoints have been experimented with in pointed directions, and those areas which are still catching up in the use of reason in advancing primitive, mainly religious, morals. As a generalization, the consistency of the majority and the perennial re-occurrence of specific duties, in the form of laws and consistently valued responsibilities, shows there is a good reason to believe these duties, as well as morals, developed from a common evolutionary rooting, and progressed in a similar direction due to the factors which are common amongst humans. This leads one to believe in the universality of duties and morals as their progression has good reasoning backing it in contrast with the difficult to defend and dishonest appearance of relativism, as expounded upon in “Basic Moral Realism”. We are currently in a place where the duties of the individual are culturally outlined, well known, and carried out by the majority, detailed to correspond to every phase of life, all springing through this collective empowering of the duties of the individual. This isn’t to say that these culturally supported duties aren’t fallible, corruptible, and able to head in directions that are unagreed on by society.

Many are liable to rebel against culturally accepted duties as civilization changes, in a variety of ways and situations. Those duties that have stood the test of time and are still respected today we take for granted, but they all were developed in this manner, that is, stemming from biologically beneficial purposes, to familial benefitting purposes, expanded to the tribal and later the state levels. Culture tweaks as times change, and we are left with our current duties, which reflect in their abstract articulations the same duties in which the human species valued thousands of years ago that led to our survival. Things such as the care for young by the mother through feeding, the gathering and hunting for food and physical protection by the men, now has become things such as providing the financial support of children through education, providing for their survival (food and shelter) through stable employment. The same abstract duties still are unquestionably expected by parents, the differences obviously are the means and forms at which they are manifested.

The autonomy of the single individual, and his (including in progressive countries – her) responsibility to be dependent, relying on themselves to provide for their own care in adulthood has also stood the test of time. In any epoch of human history, a codependent human, or someone who takes and relies on others more than gives or contributes, is a liability, and is never high in the hierarchy. Certain virtues and strength of character have been valued, although all morality must be brought to situational accounts dictated by prudence and wisdom, as outlined in “Precursor to Wisdom Ethics”. Certain individual virtues have been praised for thousands of years such as honesty, reliability, equanimity, compassion, hard work, perseverance, dedication, loyalty, justice, as well as vices rejected, such as deception, rashness, foolishness, laziness, or injustice. The duty of the “good” man to follow the former and the detriment to the “bad” man in not, has been explained and accepted as far back as Aristotle, duties themselves being explicitly expanded upon by Cicero. There’s good reasons for how and why our current duties developed, and good reasons as to why we should follow most of them.

If we are to cope with existing in a meaningless world in a beneficial way, while still acknowledging the experience of our own subjectivity, that is, if we wish to live in a psychologically healthy state (not consumed by unwholesome, unpleasant emotions) as well as a physically healthy state (not suffering in pain, hunger, etc.), we must not forget our duties to the community, each other, the state, of which we are a part of no matter if we desire to be or not. This isn’t saying to be a slave to the masses or the government overlords, rather that there is something crucial being said just in the abstract articulation of common duties, there are lessons to learn and ways to improve, they have become unconscious, and unrecognized as time has habituated us to their normalcy. There is much to be gained in the understanding and exploring of these duties we feel to by implied by our culture, they have been forged by our ancestors, forged by evolution, by millions of years, by the universe itself.