Responsibility
Responsibility is the duty to exercise one’s freedom and power rightly, and to answer for one’s choices and their consequences.
The Key Idea of responsibility is rooted in the human capacity to choose and act. A rock rolling downhill is not responsible for where it lands. Human beings are responsible because they can deliberate, choose among alternatives, and act upon their choices.
Responsibility therefore has two dimensions. Before we act, we have a responsibility to choose well, which includes exercising our freedom and power well. After we act, each of us is responsible for what we chose, what we did, and the consequences that followed.
Freedom provides a wide sphere in which to choose; responsibility requires that we answer for the choices we make.
Responsibility and Power
Responsibility must correspond to power. It makes little sense to hold someone responsible for something he had no ability to influence or control. I can reasonably be held responsible for keeping a promise I freely made. I cannot reasonably be held responsible for tomorrow’s weather.
Federalist No. 63 states the principle succinctly: “Responsibility in order to be reasonable must be limited to objects within the power of the responsible party.”
This principle works in both directions.
A person should not be blamed for what lies entirely beyond his power. But when someone is given substantial power, corresponding responsibility follows.
- A parent exercises authority over a child and therefore assumes responsibilities for that child.
- A surgeon is entrusted with extraordinary power over a patient’s body and therefore bears serious responsibilities in exercising that power.
- A public official entrusted with governmental power becomes responsible for how that power is used.
Power without responsibility invites abuse. Responsibility without sufficient power is unreasonable.
Responsibility Before and After Choice
Responsibility does not begin only when something goes wrong. A responsible person considers duties and foreseeable consequences before choosing. He asks what ought to be done, what belongs within his power, whom his actions may affect, and what obligations he has undertaken.
Afterward, responsibility requires answering for the choice. This may mean accepting praise for something done well. It may mean accepting blame for wrongdoing, repairing damage where possible, honoring an obligation, or bearing consequences rather than shifting them onto others.
Responsibility therefore involves more than saying, “I made the choice.” It means recognizing that choices belong to the person who makes them. A person who enjoys the benefits of freedom while constantly assigning the costs of his own choices to others seeks liberty without responsibility.
Responsibility and Virtue
Responsibility should not be confused with mere reliability. A criminal can reliably perform an unjust deed. Nor is responsibility simply doing whatever other people want us to do.
Sometimes acting responsibly requires refusing popular demands, resisting pressure from friends, or accepting personal costs because justice requires something different. Responsibility therefore has a moral dimension. To exercise responsibility well requires judgment about what is right, wise, and just.
This connects responsibility to virtue. Prudence helps us judge what should be done. Justice helps us recognize what is rightfully due to others. Courage helps us accept difficult duties and consequences rather than avoiding them. Responsibility concerns how free human beings govern the choices and powers that belong to them.
Responsibility in the American Founding
The noun responsibility was relatively new in English political discussion during the late eighteenth century, even though older words such as accountable and responsible were already in use. The American constitutional debates gave the idea an important place in republican government.
The authors of The Federalist Papers repeatedly connected responsibility with political power.
As mentioned above, Federalist No. 63 argues that responsibility must concern matters actually within an officeholder’s power and matters about which citizens can reasonably judge performance. Political responsibility becomes meaningless when citizens cannot tell who possessed the authority to produce a particular result.
Publius develops the point further in Federalist No. 76. Discussing presidential appointments, he argues that “the sole and undivided responsibility of one man” encourages “a livelier sense of duty and a more exact regard to reputation.”
The principle is important: clear authority helps create clear responsibility.
When many people share power so diffusely that nobody can tell who decided what, blame and credit can disappear into the group. When one identifiable person possesses authority, citizens can more readily judge how that authority was exercised.
Hamilton makes an even broader argument in Federalist No. 70. In a republic, he writes, magistrates should be personally responsible for their behavior in office; dividing executive authority among several people can conceal faults and weaken responsibility.
Responsibility therefore functioned not merely as a personal virtue but also as a constitutional design principle: governmental power should be structured so that citizens can easily identify who possesses authority and hold those persons responsible for how they exercise it. Large bureaucratic systems can complicate this principle when power is dispersed so widely that citizens cannot readily determine who is responsible for particular decisions.
Responsibility and Self-Government
A free society depends upon people capable of taking responsibility for their own lives.
Personal self-government requires individuals to make choices, fulfill obligations, care for what has been placed in their hands, and bear responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of their actions.
Political self-government requires the same principle on a larger scale. Citizens must judge how public power is exercised, while constitutional institutions should make clear who possesses that power and therefore who can reasonably be held responsible for its use.
Responsibility thus connects freedom, power, duty, consequences, and accountability. Freedom invites human beings to make choices. Power gives those choices effects. Responsibility requires us to exercise both well and answer for what follows. Self-government becomes possible when free human beings accept responsibility for governing what lies within their power.
