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Responsibility, Freedom Linked By Visiting Vienna Philosopher
Kurt Baier, contemporary Viennese philosopher, discussed the relationships between responsibility and freedom last night by defining responsibility in four segments.
"Responsibility," Baier said, "is composed of four concepts: trustworthiness, culpability, answerability, and liability."
Baier, chairman of the philosophy department at the University of Pittsburgh, delivered his paper before a crowd estimated at over 200.
Baier discussed first trustworthiness, or, as he mentioned, "that sense of responsibility closest to trustworthiness." He said, "People vary in the degree of trustworthiness depending upon how well they discharge their responsibilities."
BAIER CAUTIONED the audience to make a distinction between responsibility and duty.
He explained that primitive societies have duties, but complex societies with their interlocking relationships rely on overall success to function.
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"Men in complex societies must be able to foresee obstacles and work around them," he said. He added that they must be able to do more than follow orders.
ANSWERABILITY, or the central sense in responsibility, calls for each actor in the society to know his part, Baier said.
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"Everyone must have clearly defined duties so that concerned people will know to whom to turn in case of a failure in functioning," he said. He said that people with responsibility need to succeed and that the way to do this was to be responsible or answerable, to others.
The third aspect was culpability, or the fault. Baier said that blame, condemnation, and punishment all come under this heading.
"THE PERSON WHO SUFFERS the injustice must have the wrong
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righted if possible, or if not possible,
then be compensated," he said.
Baier said that steps should also be taken to prevent a rehappening of the situation if that is possible.
Liability and fault must be separated, Baier said. He stressed that the concept of making those pay who are culpably wrong is not valid anymore.
If will is determined then will is not free. If will is not free, then nothing is anyone's fault. If nothing is anyone's fault, then no one is culpable or is to be blamed, he said.
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