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This essay looks at two of the best-known Golden-Age plays from the point of view of moral behaviour. More particularly it considers the way in which the conduct of the major characters is represented conceptually, that is to say, the justifications offered for their actions. A comparison of the two plays suggests that the Calderonian concept of moral conduct is more in tune with emerging concepts of the self in the seventeenth century than is Lope's. Whereas Lope appeals to the emotions and to traditional codes of social status, Calderón, in dealing with similar issues, relies far more on reasoned argument than on emotional response, drawing on Plato and St Augustine for his presentation. Virtue is seen not as attached to a class or social group but as inhering in the self and revealed through reason. In particular we observe how a private and traditional code of behaviour is superseded by a new universal contract and by the idea of good citizenship based on the appeal to the intrinsic moral worth of the person, which was one of the central ideas to emerge in the political philosophy of Renaissance and post-Renaissance Europe: the entitlements of a good citizen were increasingly seen to be more important than those of birth or social status. Compared to his famous predecessor, Calderón seems fully modern in this respect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]