Since duty plays a central role in the professional military ethic, and since duties in large measure concern what we owe to others, we do well to start our investigation with a rather formal approach to ethical theory. Eventually we will leave that tidy world and enter the more problematic realm of human experience as captured in literature and film. Ultimately, we will exit that arena and reenter the theoretical realm to study the just war tradition, a topic of interest to any aspiring military professional.