It's a fact we distinguish responsible from irresponsible people, like wise from ignorant. But if the word "responsibility" is nothing but a subjective belief and one's belief is true for him, then everybody is as responsible as somebody else. So each person's private beliefs would be true: what things seem to each person to be like, that is also what they really are like.
But then nobody can distinguish responsible persons from irresponsible ones. That claim would not correspond with the visible fact: people have objective properties. We know that somebody is smart and that somebody is stupid. So knowledge is not relative.
We don't see Mrs Jones is responsible: she hasn't "being responsible" as visible quality such as color red and form tight are.
towards light. Happiness? Who faces the concequences?
When asking "Who is responsible for this mess?", we want to know the guilty who is the first cause in an institution: they who command can't shift the act on someone else. The chain of causes ends in managers.
We are all responsible to the future human race, according to Bertrand Russell.
2 comments:
responsible 1: person or thing that is the cause of something
"hurricane C is responsible for this devastation"
responsible 2:
responsibilty on results in the juridical sense, that one is responsible for something so that one has to be retributed for it, "be responded" (and this is the etymology) and which requires, that one knew, what the results would be. "he´s not responsible for what he has caused, because he didn´t know what he was doing"
also trustworthiness: e.g. trustworthy person on some issue ("i´m a responsible adult") i.e., person, who can be trusted as a cause of actions.
1st case: responsibelity evaporates into the infinite causal interconnected and feedbacked network of things; all responsibilty is relative and ultimately there´s no responsibilty, if there´s no God or absolutely free will.
absolute responsibilty can exist only if there is absolute freedom, nondetermined action at least in some instance, whether from part of man or God.
2nd case: one can be irresponsible only, if one is already responsible (1.)
only god could be fully responsible.
but really...fuck all that!
Yo man, thanks for the critical comment!
I absolutely agree with your claim that responsibility entails freedom. Likewise, freedom is, that is, very controversial topic.
However, your cases represent rather imagination than real instances in the external world. For example, it's childish to claim that natural events and persons' actions are in the same category. Writing and a hurricane are totally different things: writing doesn't occur without the writer and a hurricane is not a conscious actor.
You confuse "free will" and "free act": one can will whatever one wants because there's no any previous causes which force one to will something. Try to will fly! But You can't fly: flying is the different act than willing to fly. Of course, we are not able to do whatever we want always but that fact doesn't mean there's no any NONDETERMINED action.
Think the following case: if you claim that everything happens NECESSARILY, or there's no freedom, we torture you so long that you acknowledge torturing your flesh is NOT necessary.
Therefore, we would be a cause of torturing AND, then, responsible things.
Post a Comment