Paying Forward and Sharing Responsibility

Larry May, in 1992, gave a perspective on responsibility that I think is worth revisiting. His main argument is that people should see themselves as sharing responsibility for various harms perpetuated by, or occurring within, their communities that might be professional associations, work places, neighbourhoods, etc.


"...members of communities should come to see themselves as personally sharing in responsibility for the harms of their communities, even when these members did not participate directly in the harm and even in some cases, when these members could not have prevented the harm." 


"The notion of shared responsibility underlies this claim and involves an enriching as well as an expanding of the domain of moral and political responsibility."


"Seeing ourselves as sharing in responsibility for what our communities do will cause us to look closely at our roles, attitudes, and omissions as we currently look at our explicit behaviour."


"Seeing responsibility as shared also causes an expansion of our vocabulary to account for various gradations of fault of the disparate members of a community. In this sense, shame, regret, and taint are as important as guilt."


Small steps start the journey ... paying forward not just paying back.

"As members of communities (whether they be professional associations, universities, or larger social groups), we derive various benefits, which change the the scope of our responsibilities. The shared responsibility we should feel for the harms perpetuated within our communities is precisely the cost we incur by being members of those communities."


"But because we rarely think about responsibility in communal terms, it is difficult for most of us to accept these responsibilities."


We might think of moral responsibilities as shared rather than individual.


Happy New Year.




Reference: Sharing Responsibility, Larry May, 1992, The University of Chicago Press