Where does duty collide?

A binding moral requirement on a rational agent to act, or to refrain, because a principle demands it rather than because the agent happens to want the outcome. Kant's 1785 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals made this the centre of morality, drawing the sharp line between acting from duty, out of respect for the moral law, and acting merely in accordance with duty while moved by inclination or self interest. The referent is an inner obligation whose worth turns on the motive behind the deed, and it is not a rule a court can enforce with damages, a tax collected at a border, or a ratio measured on an oscilloscope.[1]

Unit

A binding obligation on a rational agent, owed to the moral law

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Assessed by asking whether the maxim of the action could be willed as a universal law, and whether the deed is done from duty rather than from inclination

A legal relationship in which one party is required to take reasonable care not to injure another, so that a careless act that causes foreseeable harm becomes actionable negligence. Winfield's 1934 Duty in Tortious Negligence analysed how the courts decide when such a duty exists between two parties, treating it as the threshold question of the modern law of negligence. The referent is an obligation that the law recognises and enforces through liability and damages, judged by foreseeability and the standard of the reasonable person, and it does not depend on the actor's motive the way a moral duty does, nor is it a tax or a timing fraction.[2]

Unit

A legal obligation owed by one party to another to take reasonable care

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Established in court by asking whether the law recognises a duty between the parties and whether a reasonable person would have foreseen the harm

A tax charged by a government on goods as they cross a border, serving both as a source of public revenue and as an instrument of trade policy that raises the price of imports. Irwin's 1998 study Higher Tariffs, Lower Revenues? examined the fiscal side of such duties, showing how a customs duty, or tariff, can be set so high that it actually reduces the revenue it collects. The referent is a payment remitted to the treasury, scaled to the value or quantity of traded goods and covering forms such as tariff, excise, and stamp duty, and it owes nothing to conscience, to a court's finding of care, or to the on time of a switching circuit.[3]

Unit

A charge on a traded good, set as a percentage of value or a fixed amount per unit

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Recorded as customs revenue collected, and analysed by the rate applied and its effect on import volumes and government receipts

The fraction of one repeating period during which a signal is high or a device is switched on, reported as a number from zero to one or as a percentage. Holmes and Lipo's 2003 Pulse Width Modulation for Power Converters treats this ratio as the quantity a controller varies to set the average output of a switched converter, and the same word names equipment duty ratings that mark a machine as fit for continuous or only intermittent running. The referent is a dimensionless ratio of active time to total time, carrying no notion of obligation at all, so it shares nothing with a moral requirement, a legal duty of care, or a tax beyond the four letters.[4]

Unit

A dimensionless ratio: on time divided by the full period, from 0 to 1 or 0 to 100 percent

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Measured on an oscilloscope or in a controller as the ratio of active time to the full switching period