Taking responsibility is often discussed as a challenging process because of the associated limits and frames in behaviors and feelings of blame or duty. In addition, responsibility is usually associated with the personal maturity of an individual who can act conscientiously and focus on consequences of his or her actions (Perring, 2014, p. 18).
From this point, the idea of responsibility is discussed in different situations when a person is expected to demonstrate a certain response to events, processes, and behaviors. The implicit idea behind the notion of ‘responsibility’ is that this response should be moral and accountable (King & Carruthers, 2012, p. 201).
The purpose of this paper is to examine the aspects of the definition of ‘responsibility’, to discuss the recent debates on the concept of ‘responsibility’ in the scholarly literature, and to analyze the idea of responsibility with references to the known cases of responsible actions and with the focus on the students’ responsibility in the context of education.
Definition of the Problem
In spite of the fact that the idea of responsibility is explained to persons since their childhood, and they learn to be responsible while studying and behaving, the notion is still discussed as complex for understanding. It is rather difficult to overestimate the role of responsibility demonstrated by persons in the society because this concept is also closely related to the notions of morality, ethics, and duty (Khoury, 2012, p. 188).
From this perspective, people are inclined to view responsibility as an essential aspect of their life, and the understanding of this idea is developed through the education and social interactions. The problem is in the fact that researchers and educators impose different meanings on the idea of responsibility as a moral, philosophical, and social concept.
According to Isaacs (2014), responsibility can be divided into personal and social, and the man’s actions differ depending on the type of responsibility that a person can assume (p. 41). In addition, there are disparities between taking responsibility for something and acting responsibly (Toumayan, 2014, p. 270). Therefore, the detailed examination of the concept of responsibility is required.
The Meaning of ‘Responsibility’
Although people can claim that they understand what the concept of ‘responsibility’ means, researchers distinguish a variety of approaches from which this idea can be viewed. Williams (2013) defines responsibility as a state of accepting the control over the certain actions or processes within the community, and this definition is related to the social responsibility (p. 352).
Ciurria (2014) is inclined to define responsibility with the focus on the moral aspects, and in this case, responsibility is a duty of a person for specific actions, behaviors, and processes (p. 546). Isaacs (2014) also defines responsibility from the perspective of the ethical paradigm, and she states that responsibility is “the praiseworthiness or blameworthiness of moral agents” (p. 41).
Chandler (2013) views responsibility as the social or personal concept associated with the moral assessment conducted in order to understand who can be blamed or appreciated for the specific actions (p. 176). Another perspective is the discussion of responsibility from the point of taking responsibility for performing some actions and accepting responsibility for certain consequences (Dempsey, 2015, p. 320).
Thus, researchers define and explain responsibility as the state of being accountable for words, actions, behaviors, and their consequences that can affect not only the personal life but also the other people. For the purpose of the research, the idea of responsibility should be not only defined but also explained with the focus on the recent debates in the literature.
Literature Review
Applying the theoretical background to the idea of responsibility, researchers refer to the theory of moral responsibility formulated by P. F. Strawson. In her work, Ciurria (2014) rephrases Strawson’s vision of moral responsibility as the people’s “tendency to express the reactive attitudes of gratitude, resentment, disapprobation … toward others in light of their intentional actions” (p. 545).
From this perspective, responsibility is considered in those cases where a person acts against the widely accepted moral norms or other types of rules. According to this theory, while acting in the society, a person should be ready to the assessment of his or her responsibility or responsible actions by the public.
These assessments are discussed as “reactive attitudes”, and the whole idea of responsibility becomes viewed as the “social competence” that determines how effectively a person can interact within the society (Ciurria, 2014, p. 551).
Another essential theory to explain the principles of responsibility is formulated by Emmanuel Levinas, who focused on the responsibility to protect. According to Toumayan (2014), who explained Levinas’ ideas, the responsibility to protect is observed in those cases where leaders decide on the further steps for the benefit of people (p. 270). Thus, both theories explain the responsibility toward others.
Responsibility toward the public is often referred to as the political responsibility because the public imposes certain obligations on political leaders to be responsible for nations and their development (King & Carruthers, 2012).
In this context, focusing on the responsibility toward the masses and predicting consequences at the global arena, Chandler (2013) speaks about the people’s ”embeddedness in emergent chains of causality” in the context of acting responsibly (p. 176).
However, Chandler (2013) also notes that, imposing the full responsibility for specific activities and processes observed in countries and globally on political leaders, people try to avoid taking their personal responsibility for their life and the life of their families (p. 177).
The history demonstrates that the responsibility toward the society as the performance of activities for the benefits of masses is adopted only by a few individuals, and the full understanding of the concept of social responsibility is observed in relation to communities and organizations within which people interact (Waghid, 2014, p. 5; Wartell, 2013, p. 167).
According to Dempsey (2015), in this case, people act responsibly when they follow moral norms and rules set in the concrete settings or organization (p. 319). Nevertheless, discussing the responsibility toward other people, researchers also pay attention to the idea of the personal responsibility.
The problem of the personal responsibility as the idea of accepting one’s duty for performing certain activities and making right choices is discussed by researchers from the perspective of making responsible choices that are appropriate for a person and from the perspective of accepting someone’s authority to assess the person’s responsibility (Isaacs, 2014, p. 41; Khoury, 2012, p. 188).
Williams (2013) notes that people can discuss only some persons having the accountability to blame them “for certain forms of vice or misconduct”, and in this case, it is necessary to speak about the problem of standing and authority (p. 351).
Referring to students, Lewis, Romi, and Roache (2012) state that young people usually accept the authority of educators to blame them for being irresponsible, but they often do not accept the judgments of their peers (p. 871).
Thus, the literature demonstrates that the personal responsibility makes people analyze all the outcomes of their actions, but people are often not ready to be blamed for irresponsible actions in spite of providing the evaluations for others.
Examples of Responsibility and Responsible Actions
While focusing on the real-life examples of demonstrating responsibility in relations with relatives and friends, in personal behaviors, as well as in the educational and professional spheres, researchers propose the evidence of acting responsibly in relation to children, parents, relatives, friends, and colleagues.
In a family, the vivid example of responsibility is the parents’ attitude to their children when parents think about the benefits of their behavior for the child. The responsible behaviors include care and attention in this case. In the educational sphere, it is possible to speak about the responsibility of students for their results in learning and the responsibility of educators for the achievements of their students.
In his work, Wartell (2013) argues that it is a different level of educators’ responsibility when they are responsible for performing their professional tasks and when they are responsible for students’ attitudes to the study and career choices (p. 166).
In spite of the fact that families take the primary responsibility for developing people’s visions and intentions, educators also take the significant level of responsibility in order to provoke the students’ interests in certain activities and develop their own understanding of responsibility.
Another example of responsibility can be observed in the workplace where people are paid for being responsible and motivated to achieve the high results. People who perform their duties in time and carefully are often discussed as responsible, but this example of responsibility does not illustrate the deep meaning of this concept.
According to Dempsey (2015), the responsible action in the workplace is the avoidance of unethical behaviors and words contributing to developing the corporate culture (p. 321). From this point, the examples of responsibility vary depending on the people’s visions of this idea.
Cases of Responsibility in the Historical and Social Contexts
While concentrating on the real-life examples and cases of responsibility that are important to be discussed in order to contribute to the understanding of the concept, it is necessary to mention the responsibility of Prophet Muhammad, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, Albert Einstein, and Mother Teresa.
In spite of the fact that these people held responsibility toward different categories of population, their words and actions were perceived as necessary for the society and advantageous for the public.
In his work, Ushama (2015) analyzes words from the Muslim Scriptures focusing on the role of Prophet Muhammad as a person set by Allah to become responsible for educating others to cope with hardships and find the blessings in the faith (p. 54).
If Prophet Muhammad is an example of the person responsible toward the public in terms of religion, Nelson Mandela is often viewed as a responsible person playing in the political environments. Mandela’s teachings on responsibility for the community contributed to creating the strong national force protecting the rights of the South African public.
Waghid (2014) notes that according to Mandela “acting responsibly towards the other requires of a person to treat another person humanely in the sense of not violating the personhood of the other person” (p. 5). This principle provided the grounds for Mandela’s humanistic philosophy based on the idea of the responsibility of everyone toward others.
Malcolm X is regarded as a political, social, and religious leader who also declared the idea of accountability convincing the masses to take responsibility for their personal racist actions and convincing the officials to accept responsibility for discrimination against the religious and racial grounds (Mbunga, 2013, p. 10).
In the sphere of science, it is important to refer to the responsibility of Albert Einstein who drew the public’s attention to the role of people’s scientific actions and discoveries for the development and formulated the principles of the philosophy of science.
In the social sphere, the leader is Mother Teresa, who accepted her duty for helping other people to become responsible for orphans, as well as poor and sick people who need the assistance in the society.
According to King and Carruthers (2012), these personalities accepted their moral responsibility to other people and focused on assisting others to become more responsible for their actions (p. 202). These discussed cases demonstrate how the responsible actions of each person can change the world around them.
Analysis of the Concept of ‘Responsibility’
While referring to the literature review and the examination of the examples, as well as cases of responsibility that have the historical and social meaning, it is important to conduct the analysis of this concept in detail. It is important to determine the difference between taking responsibility and acting responsibly, discuss advantages and disadvantages related to the concept, and analyze this idea in relation to students’ behaviors.
Taking Responsibility and Acting Responsibly
It is important to state that examples and cases of responsibility, as well as the researchers’ claims, indicate that taking responsibility for something is not the same as acting responsibly and according to certain rules and expectations. While taking responsibility for behaving wrongly, a person cannot change anything (Isaacs, 2014, p. 45). On the contrary, acting responsibly, a person predicts consequences and can avoid failures.
From this point, responsibility is primarily associated with acting responsibly, understanding positive and negative outcomes of actions or absence of actions. In this context, responsibility has a few similarities with blameworthiness and taking responsibility for the past actions without actual steps to change the situation (Khoury, 2012, p. 189).
The problem is in the fact that demonstrating blameworthiness and focusing on the responsibility of other people, individuals are inclined to ignore their personal responsibility for actions, as it was noted by Chandler (2013), who discussed the political responsibility (p. 177).
In the context of education, students are inclined to impose responsibilities for their academic failures on teachers, and educators can impose the responsibility for problems on policymakers and developers of curricula.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Acting Responsibly
One of the main reasons for adopting responsibility by only mature and conscientious persons is the fact that acting responsibly has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of responsibility is the understanding of all outcomes associated with the person’s behavior and actions (Ciurria, 2014, p. 547).
The person knows that he or she did all possible in order to achieve the concrete results, and this person becomes ready to any consequences. However, the necessity of acting responsibly can be discussed as having disadvantages because of limiting people in their actions and providing certain moral frames.
The feeling of responsibility makes people act not according to their desires, but according to the goals and plans (Perring, 2014, p. 18). Still, the perceptions of advantages and disadvantages of responsibility are often different.
Thus, responsible students can view the process of acting responsibly as an advantage because they perceive the process of studying as building the fundament for the future career. On the other hand, irresponsible students can see the idea of responsibility as full of disadvantages because it prevents them from acting in a desired manner before performing actions for which they are responsible.
The Value of Responsibility for Students
Responsibility is usually associated with the personal maturity. In the case of students, the full understanding of responsibility is typical of those students who are obtaining their degrees and planning the career. The reason is that the choice of studying and acting responsibly is often based on the analysis of possible consequences of intended actions (Wartell, 2013, p. 167).
The primary motivation for students to study well and achieve higher results, in this case, is the orientation to the future and the understanding of the role of the study in the personal and professional development (Saxon, 2013, p. 14).
The level of maturity and experience of the majority of undergraduate students allow them understanding that such negative consequences as the unemployment and the failure to realize their professional potential can be expected if their actions and the attitude to the study are not responsible enough (Wartell, 2013, p. 166).
According to Lewis et al. (2012), teachers often pay much attention to developing the vision of responsibility in their students in order to help them adapt to the world where responsibility serves to provide certain moral norms and rules (p. 872).
From this point, the value of responsibility for students is high because the development of the personal responsibility can influence the overall successfulness of a student in the study and career.
Conclusion
Although the idea of responsibility is actively developed in the modern society, there is still no single definition adopted for the concept because of the variety of aspects covered by this notion. However, responsibility plays the key role in discussing the nature of the personality because responsible actions are often discussed by researchers as morally appropriate behaviors.
Moreover, the idea of responsibility is also discussed in the context of developing in persons the understanding of accountability and blame. Thus, the understanding of the role of responsibility is also essential for students who should act, taking into account the advice of educators and their goals for the future.
References
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