The Stolen Generation: Who Is Responsible, And Can Past Wrongs Be Made Right?

8 Pages 1923 Words

rposes is similar to moral responsibility, is basically where a duty to act arises because of some sort of relationship, even if it is just a community . This idea essentially imposes a duty to act in a particular way in some circumstances, and so this can mean that a lot of different people can be liable – individual people or whole organisations. Social responsibility relates to the present and to the future. This essay will deal with the two different types of responsibilities later on.

On the other hand, there is causal responsibility. It may be argued that according to the notion of free will and determinism, responsibility can only arise where the person or group has control over the decision. Causal responsibility relates to the past and the present, and can be used as a ‘finger of blame’. This can all be seen in the philosophy of responsibility proposed by Honore .

The free will perspective is effectively where a person is presented with the ability to make choices between two or more different alternatives, and hence they exercise a degree of control over the outcome of the situation. A good example of this is where a person has purposefully gone out of their way to hit someone – they made an active choice not to do what they usually do, and then hit the person. This person could be said to be responsible for hitting the other person.

Alternatively, the idea of determinism is where a person is not presented with choice, but rather, the person’s situation and external circumstances are what dictates their behaviour, and hence, the outcome. If we look at the...