=Social Character of Duties.=--But this statement describes the experience only on its formal side. In the concrete, that end which possesses claim to regulate desire is the one which grows out of the social position or function of the agent, out of _a course of action to which he is committed by a regular, socially established connection between himself and others_. The man who has assumed the position of a husband and a parent has by that very fact entered upon a _line_ of action, something continuous, running far into the future; something so fundamental that it modifies and pervades his other activities, requiring them to be coördinated or rearranged from its point of view. The same thing holds, of course, of the calling of a doctor, a lawyer, a merchant, a banker, a judge, or other officer of the State. Each social calling implies a continuous, regular mode of action, binding together into a whole a multitude of acts occurring at different times, and giving rise to definite expectations and demands on the part of others. Every relationship in life, is, as it were, _a tacit or expressed contract with others_, committing one, by the simple fact that he occupies that relationship, to a corresponding mode of action. Every one, willy-nilly, occupies a social position; if not a parent, he is a child; if not an officer, then a citizen of the State; if not pursuing an occupation, he is in preparation for an occupation, or else is living upon the results of the labors of others. =Connection with Selfhood.=--Every one, in short, is in _general relations to others_,--relationships which enter so internally and so intimately into the very make-up of his being that he is not morally free to pick and choose, saying, this good is really my affair, that other one not. The mode of action which is required by the fact that the person is a member of a complex social network is a more final expression of his own nature than is the temporarily intense instinctive appetite, or the habit which has become "second nature." It is not for the individual to say, the latter is attractive and therefore really mine, while the former is repellant and therefore an alien intruder, to be surrendered to only if it cannot be evaded. From this point of view, the conflict of desire and duty, of interest and principle, expresses itself as a conflict between tendencies which have got organized into one's _fixed character_ and which therefore appeal to him just as he is; and those tendencies which relate to the development of a larger self, a self which should take fuller account of social relations. The Kantian theory emphasizes the fact brought out above: _viz._, that duty represents the authority of an act expressing the reasonable and "universal" self over a casual and partial self; while the utilitarian theory emphasizes the part played by social institutions and demands in creating and enforcing both special duties and the sense of duty in general. § 2. KANTIAN THEORY