  Different perfectionist theories offer different accounts of the content of self-regarding duties. Generally speaking, it is useful to distinguish negative from positive duties to oneself. Negative duties are duties to refrain from damaging or destroying one’s capacity to lead a good life. For example, barring exceptional circumstances, one has duties to refrain from suicide and self-mutilation. Positive duties, by contrast, are duties to exercise one’s capacity to develop one’s nature and/or to realize perfectionist goods. For example, one has a duty to develop one’s talents and not to devote one’s life entirely to idleness and pleasure (Kant 1797).