Duty
"One of the most destructive anti-concepts in the history of moral philosophy is the term "duty."
An anti-concept is an artificial, unnecessary and rationally unusable term designed to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept. The term "duty" obliterates more than single concepts; it is a metaphysical and psychological killer: it negates all the essentials of a rational view of life and makes them inapplicable to man's actions . . . .
The meaning of the term "duty" is: the moral necessity to perform certain actions for no reason other than obedience to some higher authority, without regard to personal goal, motive, desire or interest.
"Duty" destroys reason: it supersedes one's knowledge and judgment, making the process of thinking and judging irrelevant to one's actions.
"Duty" destroys values: it demands that one betray or sacrifice one's highest values for the sake of an inexplicable command - and it transforms values into a threat to one's moral worth, since the experience of pleasure or desire casts doubt on moral purity of one's motives.
"Duty" destroys love: who could want to be loved not from "inclination," but from "duty"?
"Duty" destroys self-esteem: it leaves no self to be esteemed.
If one accepts that nightmare in the name of morality, the infernal irony is that "duty" destroys morality. A deontological (duty-centered) theory of ethics confines moral principles to a list of prescribed "duties" and leaves the rest of man's life without any moral guidance, cutting morality off from any application to the actual problems and concerns of man's existence. Such matters as work career, ambition, love, friendship, pleasure, happiness, values (insofar as they are not pursued as duties) are regarded by these theories as amoral, i.e., outside the province of morality. If so, then by what standard is a man to make his daily choices, or direct the course of his life?
In a deontological theory, all personal desires are banished from the realm of morality; a personal desire has no moral significance, be it to create or a desire to kill. For example, if a man is not supporting his life from duty, such a morality makes no distinction between supporting it by honest labor or by robbery. If a man wants to be honest, he deserves no moral credit; as Kant put it, such honesty is "praiseworthy," but without "moral import." Only a vicious represser, who feels a profound desire to lie, cheat, steal, but forces himself to act honestly for the sake of "duty," would receive a recognition of moral worth from Kant and his ilk.
This is the sort of theory that gives morality a bad name.
~ Above found at Ayn Rand Lexicon - Duty