Membership in the group

Duty is what connects you to your honor group. 

Duty is what your honor group defines as the necessary conditions of membership in the group. To fulfill one's duty is to belong to what one percieves as an honor elite. To shirk one's duty, which is to say, to display cowardice, is to demean the honor code of one's honor group and to bring disgrace onto the entire group. So the basis of duty is camaraderie and the loyalty to the honor of the honor group. Cowardice is the lack of will to defend the honor of the group. 

When Western culture began to elevate the interests of the individual above the values of the group, it put into opposition the conduct of the member to the values of the group as defined by the honor code. Whether psychological disorder excusing cowardice in battle or personal renumeration excusing cronyism in professional life, the code of honor was being weakened, and with it, the weakening of the fabric of the entire civilization.