Imagine what a wonderful world it would be if we all took responsibility for
our own actions and decisions seriously and always acted from the highest motives.
We would not carry out any task we were called upon to perform unless professionally
qualified to do it, and if we felt we were not qualified we would consult someone
else who was in a better position to judge.
Instead of facing personal responsibility for a situation which we have created
or in which we are actively concerned, we often take the cowardly and dishonest
road of trying to pass the buck. Much of our management and organisation of
affairs in modern society, particularly in any matter which involves a political
decision, is devoted to placing personal responsibility upon the shoulders of
someone else who can be made a scapegoat if necessary. We take an incredible
amount of trouble to construct chains of responsibility in which no one can
be caught carrying the can.
If I have a complaint about a public service which I think is failing me, the
person whom I contact invariably explains that he or she is innocent, even ignorant,
of the defection. Sometimes that person will refer me to another who is more
knowledgeable, and that, I consider, shows willingness to take some responsibility,
with the honest admission of personal incompetence to make a judgment. Responsibility,
however, is often shelved by pleading that someone is acting on the orders of
a superior in the hierarchy of command. That may be permissible in a fighting
force, but not in healthy civilian circumstances. When it comes to the last
resort, to the regulations and laws of the country, we must face an army of
highly paid specialists who can be guaranteed to shift responsibility for any
event from person to person till it reaches anonymity.
From the standpoint of philosophy, we must recognise three kinds of responsibility
— causal, legal and moral. To bring about an event directly or indirectly
carries the burden of causal responsibility. Breaking a written regulation amounts
to legal irresponsibility. When it comes to moral responsibility it becomes
more difficult to define, since this may conflict with the other two.
Causal responsibility is usually considered a proper criterion for moral responsibility,
but taken one stage further, failure to act in a situation is considered to
confer moral responsibility also. An essential determinant of moral responsibility
is that the doer of the act knows what he or she is doing and is willing to
do it. To claim diminished responsibility, the sinner must demonstrate a serious
malfunction of the nervous system. It cannot be enough to plead that an action
was carried out under the influence of drink or drugs, unless, of course, the
drug was administered by someone else and the taker was unaware.
The path to responsibility is hard to tread, and many fall by the wayside, but
I think we must persevere.