Are There Limits To Personal
Responsibility?
February 3rd, 2010 by Gary
Hipworth
It is undeniable that luck, genetics and environment play a role in one’s
life.
However, I am still responsible for what I make out of my
handicaps, my inadequate education, my poor health, my family background and so on.
There is a reciprocal relationship between environment and one’s behaviour – that is
they influence each other. Nothing is fixed forever. Therefore whatever situation I find myself in, I can still
have some control over the attitude I adopt to my adversity. Christopher Reeves immediately springs to mind.
I can curse the fact I was ever born, or I can be grateful for just waking up every day.
It looks like I really am the primary creator of my experiences,
both good and bad. This may also include various diseases, or even a bad back, due to my poor choices of
diet, lack of exercise, environment, unfulfilling work or relationships, and bad money management all adding
to a high stress load on my immune system.
This is not easy to accept! But it is difficult to deny.
What about my failure to act?
I also believe that I am responsible for both my actions and my failure to
act.
There is for example, mass starvation and other shocking problems in the world that I
choose to ignore or keep myself uninformed about. I must take full responsibility* for not acting, not from a moral
point of view but simply because I have the freedom to act, even if I could only raise $1 or plant one
tree.
When the full implications of my total freedom and responsibility sink in, I can feel
totally overwhelmed or galvanised into action and commit to projects where I really can make a difference, no
matter how insignificant others might consider them.
* J. Sartre – Being and Nothingness – makes this telling
point.
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