Responsibility and Obligation
Let's consider the concepts and the words responsibility and obligation.
These are two very important ideas that we have to deal with in the world we live in.
Curiously, at the present time, there is some tendency on the part of many people to use these words as synonyms and use them interchangeably.
In other words, people don't think precisely about what they are trying to say, and they would talk
in terms of responsibility or obligation as though the word meant the same thing. That is, both words
meant the same thing. Actually, they really do not. In a sense, they convey opposite ideas,
and it would be important for us to understand what these two ideas are. Of course, semantically
The word responsibility, you will note, begins with a Latin prefix, re, R-E. And that prefix
means of course, again, or a repetition, or a turning backward. Now, the minute we see
this Latin prefix, we know that the word following is somehow placed in a chronological context.
That is to say, we are talking about repeat, repetition, or something that is to happen
again. There is a time context in which the word is used. And this applies here. When
And we're talking in terms of responsibility.
For what we mean by responsibility falls into a chronological context in this manner.
Whatever a person is responsible for is something that has already happened up to the present
time.
He is not responsible for what he hasn't yet done.
So responsibility always begins at the instant, at the given moment, now, and then it would
would relate to events and happenings and conditions that precede that particular moment now.
Now that would be one of the prime characteristics of responsibility.
An interesting factor here that we note particularly in the current culture in which we have our
beings, is that the word responsibility is being interpreted today very largely to relate
to groups rather than individuals.
We note, for example, that an individual will do something, notably something that he shouldn't
have done.
For instance, we'll say a young man goes down and robs a filling station.
We will immediately get this kind of conversation, this kind of a claim will be made.
It will be said, well, the young man really isn't responsible for doing that.
It's the fault of society, or it's the fault of his family, or it's the fault of his geography,
or it's the fault of his racial background, or it's the fault of his school.
It's never his fault, it's the fault of some connective group from which he perhaps comes.
Actually, that would not be true.
It would be the fault of the young man who did it because he was the one who actually
did it and is the responsible party. That is, he was responsible chronologically because
he initiated the action to which we have reference. Of course, unfortunately, we often use the
word responsibility in a negative sense. We only tie it in when it relates to something
unpleasant, such as an act of robbery or something of this sort. The word has equal
application in constructive and productive things.
For instance, a young man goes out and writes a lovely song, or organizes an orchestra,
or does something else that is constructive and positive, and he's responsible for that.
But we usually don't think that either.
We like to say, well, that's really caused by some other group.
or credit goes to his teacher or his school or it goes to his church training or it goes
to his family, we never like to, for some reason, pinpoint the individual who really
is responsible.
Now this is a very curious thing, but we tend to try to socialize responsibility and attach
it to some group.
I think this reached a kind of a culmination in this country a few years ago when we had
the tragedy of the assassination of the President, and we were informed on radio and television
and in the newspapers that Dallas was responsible, and I had a rather fantastic vision of this
great city of Dallas standing up and shooting the President.
Dallas had nothing to do with it.
That was simply the site where someone else was responsible for doing it.
Now who was responsible?
Well quite frankly I don't know.
All we've had was a government investigation so we probably never will know.
But the fact is that whoever did it, did it and they are responsible.
Whether it was one person or a dozen or whatever, I don't know and as I say perhaps we never
will know but the responsible parties are those who did it and Dallas is merely the
the site and is not any more responsible for the happening than the desk on which I place
my notes is responsible for my lecture. This is an absurdity. But this is the kind of thing
we do. And we carried it on so that later on when we had the other Kennedy assassinated,
we were told that California was responsible for the assassination. And that's an even
larger collective that is now to be made responsible. And then I think it reached an ultimate culmination
in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis when we were told the entire United States had done it.
And, of course, these are absurdities. This is to actually destroy the meaning of responsibility,
which, if it has any significance at all, relates to the ability of an individual to make a decision and to act on it.
Because he acts on it, and therefore is a decision-maker and initiates the action, he is responsible for that action, whether it is a good, a bad, or an indifferent action, the responsibility goes to the initiator of it.
Now, let me put that in just another context briefly, and I think you'll see the real significance of it.
The word responsibility is just another way of expressing ownership of something.
That's what the word really means. When we say,
that man is responsible for having done this, that or the other, what we are really saying is
that that man is the owner of the action that has occurred because he initiated it.
It's a word denoting ownership. So when we say a man is responsible for having composed
an opera, we mean he is the owner of the action that resulted in the opera. Or if we say that
man robbed a filling station and is responsible for it, then we are saying that man is the
owner of the action that resulted in the robbery of the filling station. Because in each case
The responsible party owns the action which he initiated, and that is the only thing that
makes sense.
And that's really what the word responsibility means and what it's all about.
Yet as I pointed out in the peculiar milieu that we operate in, there is a tendency to
make it appear that the responsible party is not responsible, and that connected or
or related groups are somehow responsible.
Now let's go to the other word, obligation.
Here we have a word with an entirely different prefix.
It also comes from the Latin ob, ob, and it relates to the concept of facing forward or
looking ahead.
And therefore when we are thinking in terms of an obligation, we are not thinking in terms
In terms of what has happened in the past, we are thinking in terms of a requirement
that is going to have to be met at some point in the future. An obligation is nothing more
than an assumed responsibility. But the responsibility which relates to the past was assumed at the
The moment the obligation occurred, look at it this way.
Imagine now as a straight vertical line.
To the left of the line will be everything that has happened up to this point.
The line represents this point in time.
Responsibilities would all be on the left of that line.
An obligation would be on the right of the line.
But the moment that you assume an obligation, time continues to tick along and the instant
The instant that you assume an obligation, you have become responsible for assuming the obligation.
The obligation relates to performance in the future, but the instant that you assumed it,
that instant of assumption has now passed to the rear in time and has moved over to
the left side of the line, you see.
So that's probably why we tend to mix these up, because they do come together at a point
of time.
Yet an obligation relates to something we have to do in the future and does not relate
to what we have done excepting in the sense of having assumed it. When you assume an obligation
then you've done something. And that's really all you've done. You have assumed an obligation.
Now the interesting thing here is that the words have another wide separation in meaning.
says, when a responsibility occurs in fact, the individual who initiated that action is
responsible automatically.
He can't avoid it.
Whether what he did was good, bad, or indifferent, it is automatic that he is the responsible
party, he is the owner of the action, and therefore he can't get out of it.
It's just automatic.
However he would like to pass the credit on to someone else, or the blame on to someone else,
if he is the party who did it, he is responsible, there is no way he can get out of it.
But when we look at obligation, there is an entirely different context.
When we are talking about obligation, we are talking about a volitionally assumed responsibility.
And in point of fact, no obligation ever exists until it has been volitionally assumed.
And yet we go around and we get that concept all mixed up today because at the same instant
we are told that the young fellow was not responsible for robbing a filling station,
we are told that he has an automatic obligation to, say, serve in the Army.
Well, he doesn't have any such obligation at all. Not morally, not at all. If he has
such an obligation, it would be because he has voluntarily assumed it. If he hasn't assumed
it, it doesn't exist. All obligations have to be volitionally accepted. If they aren't
accepted, well, then they don't exist. They are created at the instant the individual
says very well, I will assume that obligation. If he doesn't say that, or doesn't go through
that process, the obligation isn't there. And yet we have this effort, you see, that's
being made today to convince everybody that the individual isn't responsible, and rather
that the group is, but that the individual is obligated to the group. Well again, this
This is an equal absurdity.
The individual has no obligation to the group whatever unless he assumes it.
Once he assumes it, of course, then he is responsible because he has assumed the obligation.
Think of the monstrous immoral situation we would be in if it would be possible for me,
For example, to declare what your obligations are.
I could stand up in front of you and say, look, I'm in difficulties.
I've spent more money than I should have, and I've run up a lot of bills.
And because you're here, you are now obligated.
You have an automatic moral commitment, whether you like it or not, to pay my bills.
Well, now wouldn't that be absurd?
Of course it would be nice for me.
I'd love that.
But how about you?
How would you like to live in that kind of a world?
Well, in a sense, that's the kind of a world we're making, isn't it?
The kind of a world where our thinking is so distorted and grotesque in this area that
we actually have that happening.
We have men in high places of power and authority making obligations and then passing those
Well, you're not obliged to pull us out unless you care to do it. If you want to volunteer for it, great. No problem. But suppose you don't want to. Well, there is no possible moral obligation there. I might point out that this has even been a concept in law for many years, to wit, that a contract entered into
under duress and without the voluntary acceptance on the part of the contractor is void on its face.
It's a meaningless contract and doesn't exist. And yet, we know that, yet we tend to create this kind of a situation in which we assume
that a person automatically owes something to society, or he automatically owes something to the Red Cross,
Office, or he automatically owes something to the military or to some political structure
or something, he has no such automatic obligation, whatever.
The whole concept is impossible.
If there is an obligation, in fact, it is something the individual has voluntarily assumed.
And if he hasn't voluntarily assumed it, it doesn't exist.
Now those are the real meanings of responsibility and obligation, and I can get into lots of
The difficulty is over this because it's hard for many people to accept it.
In fact, I recall an incident that happened some time ago and I was explaining this to
a group I had in Colorado and there was a very nice young lady in the group, a social
service worker incidentally, a very fine girl anyway, she could have of course gotten a
and a better job.
Anyway, she was going along pretty well with what I had said until I got into this question
of the difference between responsibility and obligation, and then she raised her hand and
she said, just a minute, she said, I don't think I quite agree with you, or maybe I don't
understand you.
She said, I think you do have automatic obligations.
And I said, well, I don't think so.
Why would you think so?
She said, well, let me give an illustration. She said, let's just suppose that door over
there opened right now and a little four-year-old orphan walked in. And he's an orphan and he's
four. She said, we know this because he's wearing a sign. He says, I'm an orphan and
I'm four. She said, now you would have an obligation to adopt him, wouldn't you? I said, no. Oh,
she said, he needs you. I said, well, great, but I don't need him. Oh, she said, that's
Atlas. He's only four. He can't look after himself. You've got to look after him. I said,
why me? I said, you're here. You look after him. You like him. I don't like him. Oh, she
said, what, that's terrible. He's a little helpless child. I said, well, I'm a big helpless
child. Why do I have to look after him? Well, he needs a father, she said. I said, well,
fine, but I don't need a son. I got, you know, my own. This one is not mine. I have a real
I have no obligation to my own kids, one that I can hardly take care of as it is.
So if I were to try to assume another obligation, which you say I automatically have, then I
couldn't take care of the ones I really have.
And that wouldn't be fair to them.
I have an obligation in certain places that I've got to meet, now you're trying to saddle
me with another one.
I said, I don't think you're fair.
If you want him, you take him.
He's up for grabs.
You can have him.
I don't want him.
She was very upset with me, as you can understand, and we debated this a little bit, and I could
see I was not making very many brownie points with her.
She was sort of retreating intellectually.
I could watch the expression on her face and deduce this.
And I thought to myself, I've got to come up with a better way of explaining this than
I've done up to now.
And it just happened that I thought of something that had occurred to me, had actually happened
And in my experience, only a few weeks before, see, at this particular time, in addition
to talking in these areas, I was acting as the editor of the Gazette Telegraph, which
is the daily newspaper in Colorado Springs.
And this had happened to me there.
I'd been sitting at my desk one day and a lady came in to see me.
Now the minute I saw this lady, I knew I had a problem.
Have you ever seen a girl like that?
You see them once in a while.
The minute she came in the door, I knew, uh-oh, I'm in trouble.
She was tense.
She was just uptight.
That's the expression today and it certainly fit her.
She was just as tense as piano wire, just drawn up real tight.
The tears were standing on her eyelashes.
I expected her in any moment to scream and to get hysterical.
She scared me.
hysterical women disturbed me and she looked as though she was on the verge of hysteria.
So I was immediately very solicitous. I got up and I said, Madam, what is it? What can
I do for you? Here's a chair. Won't you be seated? And she sat down and she looked at
me and she said, I came in to see you about the murder. I said, murder? What murder? You
know, it's a small town. We didn't have many. And she said, well, you certainly must know
know about it.
She said, I read it on the front page of your paper a couple of days ago.
I said, you did?
And I thought to myself, this girl is really over the hill, because we haven't had a murder
in town for months.
I was quite familiar with most of the murders that had happened.
Few of them had been solved, but I knew which ones had happened, and we hadn't had one,
and I was aware of this, and I thought, you know, this gal really is confused.
So I said, I wonder if you may have been getting an out of town paper and then you thought
perhaps that what you read there had occurred here.
And she said, don't be ridiculous.
She said, I've taken your paper for years and I certainly know what I'm talking about
and it was on the front page of your paper a couple of days ago.
Well I didn't want to argue with her in this tense condition that she displayed.
So I said, well, let me get the file on the paper and you look it over and show me the
murder you mean.
And I was pretty sure she couldn't.
So I went and got the file.
We keep the daily file in a big clipboard and I brought them out and put them on a desk
in front of her.
I got her a desk and she sat there and I said, now you go through the papers and then you
tell me what murder you mean.
So I went back to my own desk and sort of kept an eye on her and pretty soon she signaled
me and she said, here, I've found it.
So I went over to her and she was pointing to a story on the front page of the paper
just a couple of days before relating to a murder that had occurred in Oklahoma City.
We had carried an Associated Press item on it.
It was one of these colorful affairs.
We'd given it about two to three inches and made it front page because it was colorful
Oh, but it was not a local murder. So I said, oh, that murder. I said, I had assumed that
you meant one here in Colorado Springs, but I said, you want to talk to me about that
murder? What do you want to talk to me about? I said, do you happen to know or are you related
to the victim? And she said, no. I said, well, do you know or are you related to the murderer?
And she said, certainly not. She was indignant. I said, well, lady, you want to talk to me
She said, I want to talk to you about it, because you and I were partly responsible for it.
I said, now wait just a minute.
I said, that's a pretty serious accusation.
I can't speak for you, but as for me, I've got an airtight alibi.
I never left town.
I've been here all the time, so maybe you had something to do with it, but I didn't.
She said, oh, I don't mean it like that.
She said, I mean it this way.
She said, you and I are a part of society, and that murder occurred because of a failure
on the part of society, and therefore to some degree you and I were responsible for that
murder.
I said, you've got to be kidding.
But she wasn't kidding.
She was just uptight.
This thing had gotten her all terribly concerned and emotionally involved.
She was frustrated.
She was trying to figure out how she could prevent murders from happening in areas where
she didn't even know who the people were.
She was terribly involved.
Well, I tried to argue with her.
I said, look, you've got a clear conscience.
You don't have to worry about this.
You had nothing to do with it.
She said, yes, I did and you did.
She said, and this was interesting, she said, you and I were equally responsible, especially
I said, well, that's fascinating. How is it that you and I are equally responsible, especially me?
She said, well, we're equally responsible because we're both members of society,
but especially you because you're an editor and you can influence more people than I can.
So, we're both responsible equally, but you more than I.
So, well, we went back and forth on this, and I could see I wasn't going to get anywhere with her,
I finally used the technique in logic, the abductio ad absurdum, I said, well, I don't agree with you, ma'am, but let me assume that I do.
Let's suppose that you're right. I said, if it's true that you and I are responsible, to some degree, for that murder in Oklahoma City,
then it follows that to some degree you and I are responsible for the murder that happened over in Hong Kong.
She says, was there one there?
I said, well, lady, take a chance. It's a big town. They probably had one. I don't know.
But let's suppose they had a murder over there. Are you and I responsible for it?
Well, you know, she'd never thought about Hong Kong in this connection, and she looked a little puzzled
and started to think about it, so I thought I'd help her a bit, and I said, you know how the people are over there.
I said, they've got an entirely different culture. They have different standards, different mores.
They have a different language. They look different. They even eat their meals differently.
They eat them with sticks. They begin with the dessert and they eat backwards to the soup.
We do it the other way. I mean, are we responsible for their murders?
Well, for just a moment she stopped being quite so tense. There was just a fleeting smile,
sort of a momentary relaxation. And then the storm clouds came in again and she said,
Well, I see what you mean. She said, I don't think we could be responsible for a murder
that far away. I said, good for you. I don't think so either. But I said, fine. If we're
not responsible for the murder in Hong Kong, I said, how about the one up in Bangor, Maine?
She said, was there one there too? I said, well, take a chance. You know, it could be.
I bet they've had them, and they may have them again. Are you and I responsible? And
I said, while you think about it, think how different these people are up in Maine. You
You know, they're a funny lot. They speak with their noses shut and they say down east
and they mean up north and they eat apple pie and steak for breakfast and things like that.
I said, are we responsible for their murders? Well, this time she smiled and the smile stayed there.
She just sort of relaxed and got to looking at me like a human being. And she said, oh,
Oh, well, she said, yes, I think I see what you mean.
She said, you know, you're right.
She said, we weren't responsible for that murder in Oklahoma City.
I said, good for you.
I don't think we were either.
She says, you're right.
This is what you're trying to tell me, isn't it?
I said, yes, it is.
She said, you're right.
We're only responsible for the ones that happened in Colorado.
That's the best I could do with her.
I never got her over that one.
Anyway, this particular story, which I recall, I now told to the group that I had there
in Colorado Springs.
And the particular lady that had been concerned about the orphan began to get the point.
And she didn't like it, but she squirmed around a bit, and she finally said, well,
I still think you've got some kind of an automatic obligation with the youngster.
And I said, no, all I have is an opportunity. But I don't have any obligation. Because if
I had an obligation, then I would be immoral and improper if I didn't fulfill it. Now in
this case I have no connection with the child. It represents an opportunity. I might want
to do something for the child. If I can see my way to do it and want to do it, I'd love
I'd love to do it, but maybe I can't see my way to do it.
Well, she said, I can't quite accept that.
She said, you've got to do something about the child.
I said, okay, let me ask you a question then.
At what point did my obligation arise?
Did it arise when the child entered the room here where I am?
Or did it arise at the moment the child was orphaned?
When did I get involved with this kid?
Well, she thought about that for a minute.
I said, well, you became obligated at the moment he was orphaned.
I said, oh, in that case, how many orphans do we have in the country?
Apparently, I'm obligated to all of them beginning at the moment that they were orphaned.
She said, oh, that wouldn't work out too well, would it?
I said, well, how many orphans are there?
I said, take a number.
You pick it.
She said, well, there must be at least a million.
I said, fine.
I think there are more, but let's settle for a million.
Am I obligated to adopt a million kids and a new one every minute that every new orphan
is orphaned? Why me? What have you got against me? Why do you have to pick on me this way?"
Well then she began to see that this was a little absurd. And she said, well, it would
be a good thing. I said, well, certainly it would be a good thing. I'm not opposed to
Good Things. We're talking about obligation and responsibility. The fact is, I have no
obligation to the child at all. And I have no responsibility until I assume an obligation.
That's an opportunity. If I wish to assume it, I may do so. But if I don't, it doesn't
exist. At least that gives us another way of looking at this major question of responsibility
and obligation. Thanks very much.