Personal responsibility, or avoiding responsibility?

Great Debates
282

The question as I see it, is not a matter of direct harms. Obviously,if you, through intent or neglect, but certainly as your fault, cause me harm, then it is your personal responsibility to make me whole. Agreed?

In Shodan’s car example, the rich neighbor had nothing to do with the theft or damage, and so has no reason to have any responsibility, to this, I think we should also all agree.

So the question is really where between those extremes does your culpability for the harms endured by another end, how liable are you for those harms, and what is your responsibility for making them whole?

If someone steals a car and gives it to me, then I obviously have to make the owner as whole as I can by giving it back, and if I made any damages to it during my possession, then I should have to pay for those, though the original thief would be held much more responsible.

If someone steals a car and gives me a ride to work, then I have benefited from the harm done to the original owner, even if I have not added to it personally in a meaningful quantity. This is the more nebulous area as to what my liability could be, and what sort of recompense the owner could demand from me.

And that final scenario is where I think we are as a society. We benefit from the way that society is set up, and yet, there are those who are harmed by the way that society is set up. So, what do we owe to those who are harmed by the mechanism that benefits us, even if we personally do not add any sort of meaningful harm to them?

I feel that the more benefit that you get from society, the more you should give back, both because you can, and because your benefit comes from the harm of others, and the greater the benefit that you receive, the more that you personally add to the harm of others stops being meaningless.

283

Rather than doubling down like this, you should consider spinning it that you were try to be funny at Shodan’s expense but everybody is too stupid to get it. Nobody will believe that either, but it might allow you to move on from one of the most hilariously wrong things ever posted at any board. But, I know, fish gotta fly, birds gotta swim and you have to cling to an egregiously off-base statement because internet.

284

Hmmm, nah, but did you want to talk about what personal responsibility that you have towards another person who lives in the same society?

I thought the ant metaphor was very apt, as it showed that groups working together, and taking a collective responsibility for the survival of their community was superior to the grasshopper who only was concerned for himself, so that when bad times came, the ants had resources to tide the community over until the winter was over, but the grasshopper owed nothing to anyone, and no one owed anything to him.

So he died, cold, starving, and alone.

Or you know, it could just be a children’s bedtime story.

285

It’s not even that good.

Regards,
Shodan

286

Do you have anything to add to the discussion other than that you don’t understand it?

287

We don’t always agree on that, esp. regarding a publicly funded safety net. No personal responsibility here, but there might be other morally compelling reasons for the rich neighbor to pay. It is, after all, unfair to you if Shodan cannot afford to fix what he has caused, and nobody else steps up to fill in the gap. But on the other hand nobody except Shodan is personally responsible for the harm done to you. That’s what I mean by personal responsibility versus equity.

My understanding is that fault = culpability = personal responsibility; personal responsibility ∈ responsibility. I would say personal responsibility ends at the first “extreme” you mentioned. If the person is not at fault, they are not personally responsible. In the absence of a specific law, liability should be based on any reasonable guarantees made (explicit or implicit) using ‘what a reasonable person would expect’ as a fallback. This “reasonable” thing means no gimmicks like, sure I’ll babysit your kid but I am not responsible for anything that happens to the kid who is under my care. A person’s responsibility for fixing harms is at least their personal liability.

If the thief gave you stolen property, you do not necessarily have to give that property back. Pretend someone embezzled my life savings and gave it to a charity, which distributed it among needy families. Let’s say it took law enforcement a year to track down the money. Those families bought houses and had children, assuming they had charity money to help them out. Are those families personally responsible for the loss of my life savings? Not in the slightest. Am I in the right to call back those funds? Absolutely not.

Now to the embezzler. Does she have the funds to repay me? No. Can she work out a payment plan? No - now a convicted felon and embezzler, her career skills (bookkeeping) are useless. She can’t even afford to live on her own, with the minimum wage as it is.

I lose. Personal responsibility versus equity.

I would say you’re off the hook with absolutely zero personal responsibility for the extra miles, unless you knew the car was stolen. No matter what the thief does with the car, he or she is responsible to the owner for a car in the state it was stolen, plus any harms resulting from the absence of the car, plus any benefits derived from usage of the stolen car. This is much like a loan with principal and interest, plus turning over 100% profit.

~Max

288

If you’re going to snark, at least use your own material.

Which is pretty much the point. The rich neighbor has no reason to have any responsibility, but a publicly funded safety net means he would have to pay anyway.

That’s the source of the conflict - even people who admit that sometimes, people who aren’t responsible should still have to pay. Even for free riders like the grasshopper. In a system with no personal responsibility, the ants should institute a wealth tax on themselves and use it to support the grasshopper, even if he did nothing to contribute to the system. Out of altruism, I suppose.

In theory, progressives know there is such a thing as personal responsibility. In practice and in individual cases, they won’t admit it.

Should people who obey the law be treated differently and better than those who don’t? Most people accept that they should. Unless it is someone who illegally snuck into the country - he should get amnesty and be allowed to stay, while the people waiting their turn in line in accordance with the law still have to go thru the process. If I delay gratification and invest my money in hopes of leaving it to my children, should I be allowed to do so? No, I should have it taxed away as much as possible and given to those who I have never met. Etc.

Regards,
Shodan

289

Maybe out of altruism. Maybe out of an entirely non-altruistic desire not to have to step over the rotting bodies on the street, or to have said bodies infect the air and water.

Or possibly out of awareness that people who do a great deal to contribute to the system often nevertheless wind up in need of support, and that everybody is unable to contribute to the system at some points in their lives and might become unexpectedly in that state at any time; combined with a desire not to have to worry about becoming one of those bodies on the street, should they find themselves in one of those categories.

290

Are we discussing the dead rotting bodies, or the living rotting bodies of the drug addicts who are receiving social support, but nevertheless continue their public begging in order to acquire enough money to fund their addiction? I’m sure you feel sorry for those people.

Which, of course

291

What did the grasshopper do to contribute to the system?

Regards,
Shodan

292

I thought you were done telling bedtime stories, and then you have to go up and dream up this fantasy that has no basis in reality?

293

Do you want to finish this post, and to clear up the quoting?

[ETA: I see I messed up the quoting. Which law does that come under?]

Presuming that you’re actually talking about the human analog: a) humans aren’t grasshoppers b) a number of people have rewritten the tale to point out that music is a valuable contribution to the system and c) are you seriously claiming that people who have worked their butts off at essential jobs never wind up in need of public assistance?

294

Are you seriously claiming that the grasshopper was working his butt off at an essential job?

Regards,
Shodan

295

Are you seriously claiming that we’re actually talking about grasshoppers?

296

In the allegory, the grasshopper did not contribute to the system. The story as written does not capture what thorny locust has described.

The equivalent would be something like an ant which worked during the summer, then one day a strong gust blew her far away. This ant spent a long time looking for her anthill, and did not find her way home until the snow fell. Meanwhile all the other ants worked hard to prepare for the winter. When the lone ant finally came back home on the verge of death, she begged for food and shelter, but the other ants rebuked her request: “you did not work as the rest of us did, so how can you ask for food and shelter now?”

~Max

297

Correct. Progressives don’t like the concept of personal responsibility, so they try hard to avoid talking about it. That’s why people keep trying to change, or not to understand, the allegory.

“What responsibility do you bear for your own situation” is not a question that liberals like to ask, because the answer is very often something other than “It’s not my fault - it’s society/institutional racism/class privilege/the government didn’t give me enough money/I can’t be expected to delay gratification or wear a condom”.

So they try to change the subject, or not understand it, or try to claim that fiddle-playing grasshoppers are vital to a functional ant society.

Regards,
Shodan

298

Do progressives also tend to drink the blood of children and molest sheep? And do you have a cite for this blanket view of millions of Americans, including many service men and women in the military?

299

Let’s go back to thorny locust’s [POST=21826706]post #288[/POST]. In that post she interpreted your remark about altruism as a question: why might the ants institute a wealth tax on themselves and use it to support the grasshopper, even if he did nothing to contribute to the system?

Maybe it was altruism. You already agreed that such a rationale is possible. I would also roll up religious reasons into this category, even if they aren’t always altruistic.

Maybe it was a practical “desire not to have to step over rotting bodies on the street”, or otherwise deal with dead grasshoppers. You did not respond to that possibility.

Maybe it was because in real life, it is not so easy to distinguish between “ant”-like humans and “grasshopper”-like humans. The ants have good reasons to create a safety net for their own in-group, and so do hard-working human beings. Maybe the hard-working people think the “grasshoppers” can be rehabilitated and eventually pull their own weight again. Maybe they don’t think it is worthwhile to screen and exclude grasshoppers from that program. Do you think that is possible?

None of these justifications for a safety net deny that the grasshopper was responsible for its own situation.

~Max

300

We have an awful lot of ants that get blown off course.

But still irrelevant when talking about ‘personal’ responsibility.

What you are looking for, you have found already. You call it altruism. The safety net, is altruism, not borne from personal responsibility. It might even be for the greater good of the ‘person’ but it still isn’t his/her responsibility.

301

Resolved: iiandyiiii, k9bfriender, Kearsen1, Shodan, thorny locust, and myself actually agree on what personal responsibility is, though we may disagree as to when it determines social policy or carries moral weight.

ETA: and in reference to the original post, personal responsibility does not extend to actions of previous generations, or benefits derived from others’ wrongdoing, only to culpability for one’s own actions.

~Max