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What is the meaning of responsibility?

Craft

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What's your personal take on it? I can never get a decent grasp of this concept. Responsible to what? Responsible to whom? Isn't that a relative thing? Isn't that dependent on what you personally care about? "This is your responsibility." It always seems connected to a social group, and it's always often about the more influential members of that group. It seems like socially agreed roles. But then, there's that line from Spiderman, "With great power, comes great responsibility", being a superhero is not a socially agreed role. What is it exactly?
 

Cellmold

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You are responsible whenever someone else is trying to enforce their authority and notion of "how reality should be" onto your actions and they have an emotional reaction to being contradicted in that effort.

In other words we're only as responsible as we feel emotionally. Or how we control that emotion in the moment. And any social contracts are generally agreed upon by the few emotional attachments we can roughly judge to be shared across our species...such as responsibility not to murder or in some way harm others, because conversely the society that allows this without punishment would result in it being used against us at some point...as in me the self.

Some people love the idea of 'personal responsibility' even though it's main purpose is often perverted from introspection surrounding how our actions affect others to instead justify people in holding harsh judgements and punishments against others for perceived personal slights, which they then contrive into objective slights against the 'responsibility'.

Righteous fury is very often the least righteous when examined closely, but it is the fury most justified by notions of responsibility. Things like determinism muddy this up even more, but I'm not too well read on the subject so I won't attempt to bring it in here, someone else can have that fun.

Still..this is easy typed on a forum than acted out in real life.
 

Cygnus

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It means you take away no more than what you first put into something, and you repay all that you took.
 

Xander

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If I call you a bad name then I'm responsible for doing that and should stand by my action and take any consequence. Conversely, if you get upset and bloody my nose then you are responsible for that reaction and should be prepared to face the consequences.

Dead simple really. It's about owning your impact and not expecting to be able to do whatever you want without consequence.
 

gromit

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You are accountable for the consequences of your actions. You follow through on what you say you are going to do. You own your shit. And you aren't a burden on others (within your capabilities, obviously).
 

gromit

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As for the social roles, I am not sure why, logically, but I do feel like if you have a lot of advantages in life, it is your social responsibility to support and help those who may not have had those same advantages. I also feel like you have a specific responsibility to people like your parents, who took care of you for so many years when you were helpless, as a child, to then care for them in their old age, as they become less able to do so for themselves.

I guess it's a kind of a social justice or something? That is one way to look at it or to frame it.

But you don't have to take the social responsibility angle. You can also just look at it as doing something out of love for others and out of respect for their dignity as a person.

But if someone is playing the "responsibility" card to get you to do something self-serving (to them) or conforming to their ideas of how you should be, then that's kind of manipulative and gross.
 

Tellenbach

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Acceptance that the consequences are the result(s) of choices and actions that you've made or stated another way, taking ownership of shit you've stirred up.
 

á´…eparted

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To answer the call and requests (in whatever form it may be) of others with due diligence, effort, and honesty. Further, doing what is required of you to move forward, better yourself, and ensure the lives of others remain good or improved.
 

Lark

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What's your personal take on it? I can never get a decent grasp of this concept. Responsible to what? Responsible to whom? Isn't that a relative thing? Isn't that dependent on what you personally care about? "This is your responsibility." It always seems connected to a social group, and it's always often about the more influential members of that group. It seems like socially agreed roles. But then, there's that line from Spiderman, "With great power, comes great responsibility", being a superhero is not a socially agreed role. What is it exactly?

I think you've just highlighted the nature of the concept, it is often context specific and requires clarification, personal responsibility is different from social responsibility, social responsibility is different from parental responsibility etc. etc.

I think its important and useful as a concept, many things are contingent or consequent to it, like risk and reward, credit and discredit etc. etc.

However, I would say that's important questions about how the idea is used and abused by people with the power to do so, if you dont want to help someone with something you can say that they need to exercise greater responsibility personally, despite knowing they are trying and lack the experience, prowess and ability of others, or better yet, they havent developed it at that point but are motivated to do so. Some people are averse to it and try to delegate and dodge as much as possible with regard to it letting others pick up the slack.

There are entire groups of people happy to believe the worst with reference to other groups of people, generally subordinates, when it comes to the competent exercise of responsibility but unwilling to recognise their or superiors faults with respect of the same thing, particularly were rank and status ought properly to attach greater responsibility to themselves or their attitudes towards others responsible behaviour.

I've my entire life been in a socialist camp which either explicitly or implicitly invests massively in the importance of personal responsibility, in much of the literature generated over time by this faction it was simply assumed (this is great problem with socialism, a lot of what it did generate did not reflect the richer and wider culture which was its foundation properly) but some of it really did emphasis it directly, like GDH Cole and others like him, so I was surprised when a US conservative first attacked my own thinking with "well what about personal responsibility?", I thought what about it, it was only in discussing with them that I discovered the extent to which a single concept could be contestable and how different political factions can believe that they exercise an ownership of it when they dont or shouldnt be exclusively identified with it.
 

KitchenFly

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Response Ability, having an authentic ability to respond appropriately correctly resposasily. To honour the duty or task as suitably expected to do as required.
 

Pionart

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With great power comes great responsibility, because it is your responsibility to use your power for good and not for evil. You are responsible to look after yourself so that you will be able to look after other people and nature at large. Responsibility recognises that we do not exist in bubbles, so what you do effects more than just you. Responsibility tailors its actions to have effects that are the most beneficial to whatever things your actions can effect.
 

Mane

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Responsible to for what?

You are responsible for your impact on everything, both around you and yourself. Gromit answered this perfectly:
You are accountable for the consequences of your actions. You follow through on what you say you are going to do. You own your shit. And you aren't a burden on others (within your capabilities, obviously).

And let me extend what it means to the rest of the questions:
Responsible to whom?
Everyone & everything your personal agency touches upon, including yourself.

Which should also help you understand why this is the case:
It always seems connected to a social group, and it's always often about the more influential members of that group. It seems like socially agreed roles. But then, there's that line from Spiderman, "With great power, comes great responsibility", being a superhero is not a socially agreed role. What is it exactly?

The more influential you have, the further the reach of your own personal agency. The responsibility doesn't result from the group agreeing that it's there, it will be there even if nobody in the group knows about it - It's simply that in the case of social power, the group's agreement is what gives a person the influence to begin with. For contrast, Peter Parker's power doesn't come from any social role given by others, but they extend impact on others and thus his responsibility for others, even if the social agreement is not only lacking, but out right disputed (Many if not most of the city inhabitants view him as a dangerous outlaw).

Isn't that a relative thing? Isn't that dependent on what you personally care about?

There is a distinction to be made here:
You feel compelled to be responsible for what you care about.
You are responsible for your actions, regardless of what you care about.

I love shrimps, and in my love for shrimps I have helped finance the murder of dozens if not hundreds of shrimps. I don't really care about the well being of individual shrimps, which means I don't care that I have harmed them. But I am still responsible for harming them. If the shrimp families of the shrimps I've eaten had a trial and asked who's accountable for the murder of their fallen brethren, holding me, the fisherman and the cook responsible would be completely true, regardless of how I feel about it, regardless of whether I care. If I deny that responsibility, that doesn't mean I am not responsible, it means I am now owning up to a responsibility that's going to exist regardless of how I feel. Agency bestows responsibility, you are within your full right to choose what you care about, you do not get to choose what consequences of your actions you are responsible for.

Warning: Mind fuck territory ahead.
 

Z Buck McFate

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This Foucault quote is coming to mind, "People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does."

And I like the way [MENTION=70]Xander[/MENTION] phrased it above: it's about owning that impact. Regardless of what we wanted our impact to be, what our intentions were, if for some reason we have more influence in any given situation than we wanted, etc- I think being responsible means seeing past all of that and being able to take ownership for the impact we've actually had on others.
 

Hitoshi-San

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Not biting off more than you can chew, and once you need to make a decision with the said thing, you find a way to make everything work out in some way or another without starting other problems.
 

Craft

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This Foucault quote is coming to mind, "People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does."

And I like the way [MENTION=70]Xander[/MENTION] phrased it above: it's about owning that impact. Regardless of what we wanted our impact to be, what our intentions were, if for some reason we have more influence in any given situation than we wanted, etc- I think being responsible means seeing past all of that and being able to take ownership for the impact we've actually had on others.

Why do people reject their impact? Do they have an emotional reason? What are common reasons? Are they simply unaware?

And how can you truly say it is your impact? The butterfly effect comes to mind. The world is chaotically impossible to accurately predict. Do you own everything that happens in the universe? Your agency keeps disrupting the atoms around you. This might sound like an absurd problem to human perception. It would seem obvious to us that you are responsible for the movement of the ball you've thrown in front of you, and not with the current war happening at the other side of the world. Where do you draw the line? A certain % involvement in the causation? And what about Awareness? Are you responsible for things you have ignorantly caused? How can you own what you don't know about? There are many complications.

The Foucault quote is helpful. Quotes from past thinkers are most of the time very meaningful. It only talks about one's reaction to one's effects though, or what people term as 'personal responsibility.' It only refers to a reaction, a very specific one(knowing or owning impacts), as opposed to an action or what they term as 'social responsibility.' Both involve 'act' or agency. How do these two forms of agency relate? The latter is simply broader?
 

Z Buck McFate

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Why do people reject their impact? Do they have an emotional reason? What are common reasons? Are they simply unaware?

:shrug: I guess I personally suspect most people are unaware. I think a lot of people are probably aware of what they want their impact to be- but they rarely spend the time/effort to check and see if it's the impact they're actually making. A lot of that is probably just already feeling so rushed in everyday life.

And then there's the problem of identity/ego interfering with the capacity to accept the impact we are actually making. Lots of folks will lash out and blame someone/something external when we don't have the impact we intended: e.g. "The only reason these flowers I brought you aren't making you happy is because you're ungrateful." (i.e. my plan didn't work out because something about someone else is flawed).

That's all that's coming to mind immediately, but there's all sorts of things that interfere with our ability to own it.

And how can you truly say it is your impact? The butterfly effect comes to mind. The world is chaotically impossible to accurately predict. Do you own everything that happens in the universe? Your agency keeps disrupting the atoms around you. This might sound like an absurd problem to human perception. It would seem obvious to us that you are responsible for the movement of the ball you've thrown in front of you, and not with the current war happening at the other side of the world. Where do you draw the line? A certain % involvement in the causation? And what about Awareness? Are you responsible for things you have ignorantly caused? How can you own what you don't know about? There are many complications.

Yeah, it's a huge thing to consider- a person could make it their full time job to pay attention to all the possibilities of the potential ripples they create every single time they interact with others (or choose not to interact) and it still wouldn't be possible to be entirely aware of one's own impact. And just like some people don't own enough of their own impact, some people own too much responsibility for 'everything that happens in the universe'- and that ends up throwing shit in the pool too (because they're not taking adequate care of themselves- which ultimately can make them more of a burden than an asset- and it only just enables the parasitic behavior of people who regularly offload their own responsibilities onto others anyway). Theoretically, it can be overwhelming to consider, especially if one is trying to build a holistic and immaculately ethical 'how to take responsibility for one's self' construct. But on a practical level- a person can cultivate responsibility and owning one's own footprint in the world by taking each moment as an independent challenge to consider in isolation.

The Foucault quote is helpful. Quotes from past thinkers are most of the time very meaningful. It only talks about one's reaction to one's effects though, or what people term as 'personal responsibility.' It only refers to a reaction, a very specific one(knowing or owning impacts), as opposed to an action or what they term as 'social responsibility.' Both involve 'act' or agency. How do these two forms of agency relate? The latter is simply broader?

I'm not entirely sure I know what you're asking here. I think I agree- I'd consider the latter broader in scope. When I hear the phrase "personal responsibility", I think about the things one needs to do to take care of oneself and maybe those directly tied to the person. When I hear the phrase "social responsibility", I think about the ripples we create that aren't as obvious to us (e.g. shopping at Walmart because it's cheaper, but then it supports a system that ultimately makes the rich richer and keeps the poor poorer...)
 

Fluffywolf

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It's an interesting concept indeed.

Responsibility is born from the privilege to make sense of the impact we have on the world surrounding us.

Without it, life would be unevolving.
 

Lark

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Consider for a moment.

The Honey Badger.

Honey Badger dont care.

Honey Badger dont give a fuck.
 

Fluffywolf

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Consider for a moment.

The Honey Badger.

Honey Badger dont care.

Honey Badger dont give a fuck.

Consciousness is a product of evolution after all, and not the other way around. ;)

Funny movie btw.
 

Lark

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Consciousness is a product of evolution after all, and not the other way around. ;)

Funny movie btw.

I think that it is less simple than that, its a little like the question of environment, it shapes people but as they are being shaped by it they are shaping it too.
 
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