responsibility vs. accountability

[dsayers]

A while back, somebody had corrected me on my use of the word responsibility, substituting in the word accountability. I found it valuable at the time and have since tried to be mindful of the similarities and the differences of these concepts. So I was hoping people would share their views on these words.

 

For example, would it be accurate to say that a 5 year old who strikes another kid is responsible for his action, but his parents are more accountable? Or would it be more accurate to say that the child is accountable, but the parents are more responsible?

[GRosado]

The first way is a better way to use both words. But they are synonyms of each other so whoever corrected you isn't really making a differentiation in words.

[Magnus]

In common usage, I'd say that people are accountable because they are responsible.

 

"Responsible" means you have the capacity for choice -- you can predict the consequences of your actions, but chose to RESPOND to something by doing X instead of Y, which caused some result (usually harmful, since those are the type of results people try to disavow).

 

Accountable means that "some harm has been caused due to your bad choice, so now you're gonna pay."

 

The "account" metaphor arises from the idea that everything can be represented in terms of money. The metaphor of the scales (I.e., of justice) also comes from commerce, since it represents the measurement of traded goods.

 

I think it's a strained metaphor when we're talking about righting wrongs. The idea of value as something that can be determined objectively is archaic, and inaccurate, as Mises and Hayek showed. It can't be determined without reference to an actual buyer. And, of course, when punishment is being imposed, it has no market value. So, for example, fining someone a million dollars for committing an assault (balancing the accounts) is a completely arbitrary assignment of value.

 

I don't think accounting works outside the context of physical goods, like commodities.

 

I guess what I'm saying is that I've become skeptical of the idea of retributive justice to the point of assuming it's bunk (until someone can convince me otherwise).

 

I think we're better off either ostracizing the people who can't be trusted, or killing the ones who pose existential threats. This idea that some measured punishment (a balancing of accounts) is able to solve the social problem of wrongs and crimes is fatally flawed.

 

The real turning point in my thinking came from a friend of mine who was dying of cancer. He had 3 sons in grade school. He had no time to fuck around. One of his employees embezzled about $10,000 from his business. His other employees urged him to prosecute the thief. He said no. He said a better way to solve this problem was to admit that it was up to him to design a business system that prevented embezzlement. So he fired the thief, made a new accounting protocol, and moved on with his life.

 

He was dying, but in the grand scheme of things, we're all dying. I think about him every time I start thinking about matters of wrongs and punishments.