Subject:
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Re: personal responsibility (was:Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 26 May 2000 17:46:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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1245 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> Also, the whole scenario gets messed up with inscrutable
> minutiae almost from the get-go: If I take an elevator to the ground level,
> step to the curb outside, and am struck by an out-of-control car (or falling
> piano, or whatever), am I more at fault than if I'd taken a different elevator
> and reached the curb a few seconds after the accident?
No. Of course not. You are equally (that is to say fully?) responsible in
each instance. In neither case is your death or survival exactly your fault,
but in both cases it was your responsibility to assure your safety. And it was
the piano movers' responsibility not to drop the piano too, this is a perfect
illustration for why you must be responsible for yourself...no one else will
be.
> Where is a line to be
> drawn regarding one's "choices" in a situation?
What line is that?
> Got it. I wasn't seeing your distinction before, but now I understand.
> Still, similar logic could be applied in order to condemn the consumption of
> vegetable matter.
Well, not to sound too much a goombah, but I do think it a shame that I have to
destroy life to get along. I don't stay up nights worrying about it, and I'm
not a fruititarian (like some folks) but I still think it's a shame. I just
can't do anything about it.
> I see what you're saying now; previously, though, the assertion was that
> people were responsible for their circumstances even when they had no way to
> be in control of those circumstances. Extending this to children-and-parents
> is just an extreme extension of that same reasoning.
I still think that people are responsible for their circumstances.
"Responsible for" and "the cause of" do not equate and are not interchangeable.
In all of our lives, there are aspects of our situation that are beyond our
control. We are responsible for how we play the hand that we are dealt. And I
don't think that I'm back-peddeling.
Any given person isn't at faulr for having parents who are impoverished, or
abusive, or ignorant, or retarded. But they are responsible for how they let
it affect them - whether it's a positive or a negative effect. They are
responsible for what they do with the all the time after they leave their
parents' care, and even when they leave their parents.
> > I'm not sure what we're arguing in this last bit. Could you clear it up in
> > your next response?
>
> I was trying to place the choice of parents somewhere on the responsibility
> spectrum, and to do so I was playing on a potential interpretation of
> "victim," that is, the subject of circumstances beyond one's control.
I see.
Chris
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