Personal responsibility: concepts and implications

Personal Responsibility

We live in an era where few people are held responsible for their misbehavior. From elementary school children who don't do homework to oil company CEOs who engage in criminal behavior, the consequences often seem to fall on the system rather than on the people who actually misbehaved. People seem to believe such things as its not cheating if you don't get caught, if you're not cheating you're not really trying and Bart Simpson's defense "I didn't do it; you didn't see me; you can't prove it anyway." In many ways the concept of personal responsibility in our society has been lost or forgotten.

Generally, personal responsibility simply means recognizing the obligations that fall on us and undertaking objectively reasonable approaches to meeting those obligations. Situations calling for the acceptance of personal responsibility include obligations to others and obligations to society as a whole, as well as obligations to one's self. The opportunity to meet our obligations by conducting ourselves responsibly arise in variety of contexts; but in principle, a person demonstrates personal responsibility by being honest and objective about circumstances and by being logical and honest about the foreseeable implications of all possible responses to those circumstances.

Personal Responsibility in Different Contexts

Personal Responsibility is taking responsibility for your actions, accepting the consequences that come from those actions and understanding that what you do impacts those around you. Situations calling for personal responsibility include circumstances where our choices of action or non-action have specific consequences to others as well as to ourselves. In general, personal responsibility requires us not to make selfish choices. In the context of our obligations to society, personal responsibility requires us to conduct ourselves in ways that do not entail taking unfair advantage of opportunities or situations at the expense of others. In the context of responsibility to ourselves, personal responsibility means, in large part, establishing logical goals, identifying what commitments are necessary to achieve those goals, and then maintaining our commitment to those goals thereafter.

You cannot control everything that happens in your life. Events are not always the result of personal choices you have made. Nonetheless, you do have control of how you react to situations and events. You have response -- ability.