Responsibility

[andrewducker]

This is inspired by the comment here, where ladysysiphus says "If you have consumed enough alcohol to impair your judgement, I believe you then have to take at least some responsibility for putting yourself in a position where something like this might happen."

[Poll #619684]

Comments

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

What are the differences between responsibility and blame? How would you distinguish the two?

[andrewducker]

Blame indicates a fault in the person. Responsibility indicates that it was the person's choice.

I can choose to wander down a back alley, or not - the choice is down to me and me alone - I am responsible for that choice. But I'm not to blame if because of that I get mugged.

Generally I don't like the idea of blame - it's usually associated with punishment and other kinds of negative feedback that I find counter-productive. I prefer to find the cause of a problem, and sort that out, without having to point at someone and saying "You are a bad person."

Of course, sometimes this can't be helped, but conflating responsibility with blame ends up with a situation where you blame a rape victime for their rape, because they made an unfortunate decision.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

So ... if you are responsible for walking down a back alley, you are merely responisble for the fact that you walked in a certan direction and ended up in a certain position, and not for any of the things which may happen in that place?

[andrewducker]

Exactly. You were responsible for placing yourself in that place, not for the things that happened to you there. It may well have been a risky choice you made - and you are responsible for having taken that risk - but that doesn't mean that you are responsible for things other people choose to do to you - they're responsible for that.