Website owner:  James Miller

Responsibility and irresponsibility

   Where does the personality trait of "being responsible" come 
   from?  What is it due to?  Isn't it just a "sense of moral 
   duty" (and doing what that sense dictates)?  Doesn't a "sense 
   of responsibility" arise directly out of a good healthy sense 
   of right and wrong, a good healthy conscience?  If so, what 
   causes the personality trait of "irresponsibility"?  Is it due 
   to the lack of a sense of right and wrong, lack of a 
   conscience?  Or is it due to just refusing to live true to that 
   sense (i.e. ignoring what is right, refusing to live up to it)?  
   Isn't the personality trait of "responsibility" then very 
   closely related to the trait of conscientiousness and the trait 
   of irresponsibility very closely related to lack of 
   conscientiousness? 

   Jan 1978