There are a number of problems with this rhetorical link between personal-responsibility-as-choice and governmental and legal inaction. I articulate several in the book; the one I want to focus on here is that the rhetoric of personal-responsibility-as-choice allows some people to avoid responsibility.

Consider the story of Nicole Eisel. Nicole was a thirteen-year-old middle school student when she became obsessed with self-destruction and entered into a murder-suicide pact with a similarly obsessed friend. Other friends notified school counselors, who met with Nicole. After Nicole denied the pact, the counselors let the matter drop without informing Nicole’s parents.

About a week later, Nicole and her friend consummated the pact in a local park. Her friend shot Nicole to death and then turned the gun on herself.

Who was responsible for Nicole’s death? If we take a simplistic view of personal responsibility, then the answer is simple: Nicole. She could have avoided death by not entering into the pact. We might also put her parents on the list--they are, by definition, responsible for the safety of their minor children. And let’s not forget the girl who pulled the trigger.

Was Nicole’s school also responsible? Nicole’s father thought so. He sued the school, alleging that officials failed to warn him. The school’s defense was that Nicole’s suicide was a “deliberate, intentional, and intervening act.”

This is the kind of question that the law knows how to handle. In a suit like this one, the law balances questions of duty, seriousness of harm, and causation. But let’s set aside the legal arguments and use Nicole’s case to question the political arguments around personal-responsibility-as-choice. It is fair to say that the school was asserting that Nicole’s choice--her “deliberate, intentional” act--meant that the responsibility for the suicide was hers and not theirs.

The school has a point. Nicole’s decision was certainly the most immediate cause of her own suicide. But this argument misses something important. Many events have multiple causes and influences, and the responsibility for creating them is dispersed. That was probably the case with Nicole’s suicide. She certainly made bad choices. But in all likelihood, so had her parents and so had school officials.

If our dedication to personal responsibility focuses our attention on Nicole, that’s fine. But if that focus causes us to ignore the role played by others in her suicide, then we’re allowing others who ought to share responsibility for the catastrophe to avoid that responsibility.

This is indeed what happens in much of the political discussion about personal responsibility. The last person in the causal chain--the last person to make a “deliberate, intentional” choice--is seen as holding all of the responsibility. Because of that, “personal responsibility” often provides a cover for simplistic libertarian phobias of government regulation, whether of food regulation or health care reform.

Letting the last person avoid all responsibility by pointing a finger upstream is usually a mistake. But it is also a mistake to allow the choosers upstream to avoid responsibility by pointing at the last chooser. The emphasis on the last choice in the chain ignores the constraints on those choices, not to mention the choices of myriad others who created the situation in which the choices were made. And that’s true whether the last chooser is someone like Nicole, or someone who is poor, homeless, accused of a crime, obese, or without health insurance.

It may be time to start talking less about personal responsibility and more about shared responsibility.


http://www.acslaw.org/acsblog/the-problem-with-personal-responsibility

I'd say that the school was negligent in not reporting to the parents the reason why the counselors talked to the girl.

Anyway, this one case of death does not warrant the political argument presented ... and if it is a political argument, then let's discuss this in the "Politics" forum.

By the way, this thread is misnamed. The dead girl did make a choice.
Choice is not a myth.

I like where he wrote

Great. End of any reason to continue reading.

The major problem with "shared" responsibility is that it means ultimately everyone is responsible, everyone is culpable, which leads to no one being responsible.

That simply leads to a government or some authority figure or organization (e.g. religious institutions) becoming sole arbiter of defining your responsibility and what you have to pay or give up for what they define you are responsible for.

That's the end result of accepting shared responsibility.
No matter what someone has to be responsible.
If you don't exercise your right to be personally responsible, the government will take it over and determine what you will be responsible for.


In societies where "community" and "family" actually matter, those are the people that determine what you are responsible for...and conversely your participation in those groups allow you to have control and a say in what they are responsible for, as well as how punishment or reward is meted, when "shared" responsibility is warranted.
There is a consistency over time due to constant interaction where people become self policing in their "responsibilities" because of the homogeneity of the group, family, and community they find themselves.

In societies where "community" and "family" don't really matter, of ever increasing diversity in cultures, when centralized authority or government takes over that removes the individuals ability to have any real say in who is responsible for what, offers no incentive for people to be responsible for themselves, and provides absolutely no consistency in what responsibility means, nor direct consequences linked to being irresponsible. It only polarizes groups into what they can get away with, how they can be irresponsible, and use the government or authority figure against other groups.

So IMO there is a much greater problem with "shared" responsibility, especially in a country with ever increasing centralized authority that has the basic rule that you can't sue it for responsibility, than pushing the idea of personal responsibility.


Other than that the title of the thread seems to be a misnomer.

in its application, it is mythical

we always have 'choice' , but what 'choices' we have are certainly not dictated by us alone


there is a COLLECTIVE authorship of our environment that largely dictates what 'choices' we can make,,,,

what you speak of is an ALL INCLUSIVE responsibility that is different than a shared responsibility

the idea is that both personal and shared responsibility should lay claim to the RESULTS and EFFECTS on peoples lives,,,

But the responsibility for a choice isn't collective.

In the case of the dead girl, she had plenty of non-lethal choices that she could have made.

Im not arguing anything different.'


People are responsible for their choices, that is a simple enough clich� to agree upon.

BUT , does that justify or mean that NOONE but that person has ANY responsibility towards that choice


for instance, if someone is hungry, and in an environment where all that is offered them is bread and water,,,, they are responsible for choosing bread and water over starving

but SOMEONE made the choice to restrict their immediate choice to JUST BREAD AND WATER


if someone drank from a fountain for whites, even though they were black,, they are RESPONSIBLE for choosing the white fountain,, but someone is RESPONSIBLE for deciding that in THEIR ENVIRONMENT that was the choice they would be given,,,

there is a SHARED responsibility in how our actions and inactions affect others and in turn the CHOICES they determine they have,,,,

I did say that the school was negligent in not telling the girl's parents what the counselors talked to the girl about.

Suicide by school children is very sad. I would have thought the school has a 'Duty of Care' for all its students, and by not making the parents aware of what they were made aware of, the suicide pact, they have failed in their 'duty of care' for their students in my opinion. In the UK this failure would have legal consequences.

The UK is different in its cultural approach to collective responsibility ,,from what I witnessed anyhow,,

Nicole and her friend are responsible for their deaths.

If a person is, or people are, determined enough, no amount of
counseling or therapy will stop them.

before one becomes 'determined' they have been influenced towards reasons for their determination

certainly , a fulfilled and secure person wouldn't wish to kill themselves,,,,

This is one of the themes of the Ken Kesy novel "Sometimes a great notion". There's also a movie of it with Paul Newman and Henry Fonda and the Paul Newman character says, "I don't tell people what to do. They make their own choices." There's a bit where one of his "friends and neighbors" is begging him to stop strike breaking and threatening to kill himself if he doesn't. The Newman character refuses to take responsibility for that and just wishes him good luck.

morally it was the schools responsibility to inform these girls parents about a pact ... which could thought to be a gang ... and morally the one that pulled the trigger was responsible and then the rest of the pact was to for her taking her own life ... and more about shared responsibility is the way to handle it ... but sometimes its not like that ... morally should be ... but every thing is so legal now and those in gangs and clicks and pacts pretty much are on their own ... when it comes to murder ... why did she take her own life becouse of the reproductions of the pact or felt terrible for what she had done ... no one will really know ...thats why they don't have the shared responsibility... and the sole responsibility will come back on the girl that pulled the trigger becouse of the law and some feel very lucky she took her own life after becouse not a whole lot can be proved ... they want put that kind of $ into this case ... hypothetically least what i believe ...

Indeed.

true but where they given the chance ? thought
the parents didn't know becouse the school did not tell them ...

I'll use the recently deceased, actor/comedian, Robin Williams
as one example.

For all intents and purposes, he was viewed by the public, and
some of the people closest to him, as fulfillled and secure.
Despite his bipolar, no one could have predicted what happened.
His determination was sudden and quiet. No one could have stopped him, for more than a brief period.

Suicide, generally takes determination.
A truly determined person can be dissuaded for only so long,
before they either learn how to play the system. Or, their support system falters.

In the end, if a person decides to smoke themself, the fault lies with them.

"Adults" are afforded the luxury of "choice" AND the responsibilities - and culpabilities - associated with the choices we make - including the "choice" to do illegal things, including suicide (in most states).

"Children", i.e., "those not 18 years of age or emancipated minors", are not afforded "choice" nor do they assume responsibility for their actions.

The friend who shot Nicole is "responsible"; because the friend was a minor, she can't be (legally held) responsible. To boot, one can't be prosecuted when dead.

The closest to "responsible" would be the friend's parents, who are responsible for the actions of their minor children. Within our current legal system, even a rather mediocre attorney would get them off any charges - assuming a D.A. would even seek prosecution.


Yes...that's the way it should be. Tampering with anything else to make a collective society in part responsible for an individual child's actions means "I" (as a member of the society bearing part of the collective responsibility of the child) have AS EQUAL a say in how the child will be raised...what values he/she will be taught, what religion he/she will be indoctrinated into (if any), what school he/she will attend, with whom he/she will associate, what time curfew will be, etc.


As a nation, we're simply NOT going to allow OTHER idiots to have a hand in raising our children, when we are each perfectly capable of being big enough idiots to do a bad enough job, all on our own, withOUT any outside assistance.

The Children made choices that were fatal..
kids seemed to be wrapped up in the moment until they mature
Adults involved in knowing,,should of taken more action to prevent

We do have laws on the books to prevent people from doing harm to themselves or others.
So morally and probably legally the school does share some of the responsibility for the deaths by not notifying the parents of the rumors of the pact.
The parents also share some of the responsibility by not being aware that their children where "in trouble".
In reality, if someone is determined to harm themselves there's not a whole lot you can do about it short of locking them up in a rubber room. And some suicidal people are very good at hiding their true feelings.
To look at it from a purely practical perspective the girls were responsible for their own lives. In the end, they made the decision to die.