Selflessness and Responsibility for Self

Westlund, A.C. (2003) Selflessness and Responsibility for Self: Is Difference Compatible with Autonomy? The Philosophical Review. 112(4), p.483-523.

‘The disposition to answer for oneself, or to be “self representing” in justificatory dialogue, constitutes a self-orientation to which I refer alternatively as “responsibility for self” or as “self-responsibility.”’

• Self-abnegating - denial or degradation of self. 

[Some propose] ‘responsibility for self to be a matter of holding oneself answerable, for one’s endorsements, to external critical perspectives.’

• This whole idea of taking responsibility for your own actions seems to cross over with the concept of social responsibility. It is an interesting idea that the same action of putting work out into the public triggers a responsibility to society but also to yourself. It’s like the idea of letting yourself down if you let society down and vice versa. 

‘holding someone accountable for [their] conduct typically involves more than just making [them] the target of one’s praise or blame, and more even than requiring that she provide some form of compensation for harms done.’ 

• This links to the ‘actions have consequences’ idea, where some form of compensation is expected to be made. I don’t know whether this links to illustration directly because normally any ‘apologies’ are more of a clarification of intentions rather than apologising for their own opinions and work. 

Overall, this article wasn’t totally relevant to my essay and from the many pages of it I only managed to pull out a few things that could connect to my current research. I think self responsibility is worth considering though, especially when it comes to building a reputation and risking tainting that by putting work out there that could offend or have harmful repercussions. It makes us ask the question that when someone works hard to be ‘socially responsible’, are they doing it for society or are they doing it for themselves?