The Online Library of Liberty

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• Literature of Liberty a Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought
• Editorial Staff
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• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: Henry B. Veatch, Natural Law: Dead Or Alive?
• I: Natural Law
• “nature” and “law” In Natural Law
• The Anatomy of Natural Rights
• Egoism and Rights
• The Is/ought Chimera
• Deriving “ought” From “is”
• Facts Vs. Value-laden Whims
• Is/ought and Probable Reasons
• Does Righteous Anger Imply Rights?
• Why Be Moral?
• Truth As an Objective Value
• Was the Revolution Objectively Necessary?
• Natural Law and State of Nature
• Natural Law and the State
• Natural Rights and Anarchism
• Dworkin On Rights
• Liberalism, Rights, and Abortion
• Rights and “mercy Killing”
• Rights and the “brain Drain”
• The Natural Law Right to Work
• Grotius: Contract and Natural Law
• Rights and Communication
• II: Autonomy, Privacy, and Authority
• Bureaucracy and “the Organization Man”
• Autonomy and Anarchism
• Autonomy and Taking Responsibility
• Autonomy, Motivation, and “buck-passing”
• Schooling For Conformity
• The Schoolroom Vs. Autonomy
• Obedience to Authority
• The Meaning of Privacy
• Privacy and Autonomy
• Privacy and Consent
• The Court and Privacy
• III: The Ambiguities of Liberty
• Clarifying Freedom
• Rehabilitating Mill's “harm Principle”
• Experiencing Freedom
• Do Offers Coerce Freedom?
• The Danger of “dangerousness”
• Freedom, Motivation, and Government Programs
• Freedom Vs. Determinism
• Negative Vs. Positive Freedom
• Smith and Utilitarian Economic Freedom
• Locke, Freedom, and Tacit Consent
• Religious Freedom
• Freedom, Existentialism, and Innocent Victims
• Does Censorship Harm Freedom?
• IV: Slavery
• Slavery, Ideology, and Subordination
• Slavery and Imperialist Ideology
• Enlightenment Liberalism Vs. Slavery
• The Anatomy of a Slave Revolt
• Colonial American Slave Law
• Jefferson On Slavery
• Slavery and the Poor
• V: Planning
• Regulation and the Warfare State
• Mail, Privacy, and Social Control
• Corporate State Capitalism: Coal
• French War “planification”: Chlorates
• Bureaucracy and British Regulation
• British Foreign Policy and Stagnation
• Political Decisions and the Economy
• Government, Labor, and Multinationals
• Black Markets Vs. Regulation
• Regulation Vs. Academic Autonomy
• Government Schools and Social Control
• The Economics of Charity
• International State Planning and Inflation
• Competition and Individual Knowledge

Autonomy and Taking Responsibility

Virginia Black

• Pace University, New York

“Responsibility Management: The Primary Object of Moral Education.” Journal of Moral Education (UK), 7 (1978) 166–181.

Moral education in the sense of “responsibility management” or accepting personal responsibility inculcates individual autonomy.

“Personal freedom of action is the capacity to act on one's preferences for good reasons, unobstructed by various sorts of coercion or compulsions.” But such freedom also requires us to take rational responsibility for evaluating and correcting the consequences of our actions. A valid theory of moral education should stress “ascriptive responsibility,” which holds a person responsible for what he does or believes, regardless the degree of personal freedom or knowledge he had when he acted. This approach aims at increasing rational capacity and knowledge of self and others by asserting responsibility without exculpation. By accepting full responsibility for our acts, we assert our personal autonomy, our freedom.

This conception of moral responsibilities differs from legal liability. Morality seeks to develop character to a more perfect capacity for responsibility and freedom, whereas law permits and acts upon the possibility of diminished responsibility by reason of mental incapacity, ignorance, or excusing conditions. Morality under ascriptive responsibility demands strict liability for both acts and omissions, regardless of any excusing conditions.

As a “self-fulfilling prophecy,” holding ourselves responsible can guide us through feelings and “action-regulators” which compel us to take personal responsibility for our behavior. Thus ascriptive responsibility becomes the educational method by which one enhances real personal autonomy, the goal of moral education.

This method heightens personal awareness on the levels of intellect, will, and emotions. When we have fully internalized the habit of responsibility, the job of formal moral education is completed. A responsible person is a free person, one who habitually thinks for himself, rectifies his wrongs, and continues to instruct his own autonomy. Today social institutions often atrophy personal autonomy. Institutions encourage dependency, reward irresponsibility, while penalizing personal responsibility and excusing wrongs. The natural consequences of these failures to manage responsibility contribute to the decline in personal freedom characteristic of our present society. But as society and the law increasingly apply ascriptive responsibility, the resulting strengthened personal responsibility will diminish the need for custodians of our personal morality. Also, state regulations which, by definition, create more crimes and criminals, and less and less personal freedom, will become unnecessary.