Virtues

Responsibility

quick ideas about responsibility. Is it good to be responsible? How does responsibility improve and worsen?

A. Responsibility: conditions and types

1. What is responsibility?

A responsible person makes decisions consciously and accepts the consequences of their actions, ready to give an account of them. Responsibility is the virtue or habitual disposition of assuming the consequences of one's own decisions and answering for them before someone. Responsibility is the capacity to answer for one's own actions.

2. Conditions for responsibility to exist

For any responsibility to exist, two requirements are necessary:

Freedom. For responsibility to exist, actions must be performed freely. In this sense, neither animals, nor the insane, nor small children are responsible for their actions, since they lack the use of reason (and the use of reason is indispensable for freedom).
Law. There must be a norm against which the actions performed can be judged. Responsibility implies giving an account of one's actions before someone who has regulated a certain conduct.

3. Responsible before whom?

Man answers for his actions before whoever is capable of dictating norms to him, and this can be done by God (moral responsibility), oneself (judgment of conscience), and other men. In turn, responsibility before others can be of various kinds: legal responsibility (before civil laws), family or domestic responsibility (before the family), professional responsibility, etc.

4. Can there be an excess of responsibility?

Yes. There is excess of responsibility when one demands an account — from oneself or others — for conduct that was not regulated or did not need to be regulated. This usually occurs when there is insufficient love of freedom; for example, if one tries to regulate and control everything down to the last detail, stifling diversity and initiative. But irresponsibility is more common.

B. Is it good to be responsible?

1. How is responsibility diminished?

Responsibility is diminished by whatever diminishes freedom — that is, by whatever hampers the will and the understanding, which are the faculties needed to perform free actions. For example, violence, ignorance, and fear.

2. Is it better to be less responsible?

No. It is preferable to be free men, masters of their actions, capable of making decisions and accepting their consequences. It is a pleasure to have on one's team someone who fulfills their commitments responsibly.

3. Why does responsibility have a bad reputation?

The word responsibility evokes unpleasant associations for various reasons:

It is normally linked only with errors or punishments, since when the consequence of an action is a reward, one tends to speak of merit rather than responsibility. (In reality, merit requires prior responsibility.)
Answering before others seems to go against one's own freedom. (But both go together: without freedom there is no responsibility; only someone who is master of their actions can answer for them.)
Answering before oneself goes against one's own tastes or comforts. (But being a slave to one's tastes leads to selfishness.)
Responsibility is seen as opposed to entertainment. (In reality it is only opposed to unbridled or immoderate entertainment; a responsible person knows how to have fun at reasonable times and in reasonable ways.)

4. What excuses are used to avoid responsibilities?

Since responsibility has a bad reputation, people often invent reasoning to avoid giving an account. We can group these into three types:

To avoid responsibilities before others, it is common to blame someone else, or to say "I am free and do as I please," meaning that one does not answer to anyone for one's conduct. (Obviously human freedom does not work this way.)
To remove responsibility before one's own conscience, a common recourse is to avoid reflection: to numb the mind until it cannot think. Another approach is to say "I don't care about anything" or "nothing matters to me." (But conscience tries to protest against this negligence.)
And the excuses for avoiding responsibility before God are plentiful — from saying that he does not exist, to claiming that God is so good that he will approve of everything. (But true goodness desires true good.)

C. How to improve in responsibility?

1. How to become more responsible?

The quickest way to improve in responsibility is to see clearly that great things depend on our conduct. People with high ideals and lofty goals take responsibility for their decisions promptly.

2. What qualities help responsibility?

Several virtues are mutually related to responsibility. Let us mention three:

Courage. To give an account of one's own actions requires a valor capable of overcoming fear of punishment. (Responsibility before others.)
Humility. Pride makes it hard to ask for forgiveness, while the humble person acknowledges their faults. (Responsibility before oneself.)
Piety based on divine filiation. Whoever appreciates the great gift of being a child of God endeavors to conduct themselves in a way that pleases their Father. (Responsibility before God.)

3. Does responsibility improve with age?

With age, more important decisions are usually made, and normally responsibility increases. But it does not improve simply through the passing of years, but through the habits one acquires. See the article on maturity.

4. How to practice responsibility?

The usual way to develop this virtue is to accept responsibility for the actions one performs:

Answering for the tasks one has been entrusted with. Trying to fulfill commitments, tasks, and duties — not only professional ones, but also in sports and family life. Avoiding becoming overwhelmed by an excess of rules, which can lead to rejecting all regulations and responsibilities.
Reflecting before one's own conscience. It is good to acknowledge errors and faults. Whoever never acknowledges fault may end up acting without any regard for others. In this sense, responsibility is improved by the practice of confession.
Responsibility before God can be fostered by meditating on the Passion, how much the Lord loves us, and the heaven that awaits us. Hell also helps one be responsible.

5. How to encourage others in this quality?

In addition to recalling the above, there are several ways of encouraging the practice of this virtue:

Presenting favorably the qualities of a responsible person — for example, making evident how pleasant it is to have on one's team someone who fulfills their commitments.
Assigning tasks and asking about their completion, with the corresponding praise if they were done well.
Having rewards and consequences according to conduct also helps. While avoiding making everything revolve around this, since the aim is to act well because that is what we want, not merely in expectation of a reward that does not always exist.