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Articles

What is Responsibility?

Hans Lenk relates to different types of responsibility.

In his The Devil’s Dictionary (1911), the well-known satirical writer Ambrose Bierce defined responsibility as:

“a detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbour. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star”

This ironic definition isn’t far off the mark: in fact, it seems nowadays to even have acquired a new connotation thanks to the modern meaning of ‘star’! Indeed, to shuffle off, displace, delegate, or otherwise vicariously attribute responsibility – these are well-known tricks. One such might be called the ‘Russian solution’ to the problem of political responsibility. Simonov, in the nineties Chairman of the Moscow Foundation For Defending Glasnost, notoriously remarked:

“Nobody is responsible for anything. Therefore, the President is responsible for practically everything – and yet, in practice not, to be sure.

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