Responsibility and Causation

David Brooks writes about the connection between personal responsibility and social and natural responsibility for a person's success or failure.

1. He comes down on the side of social and natural responsibility as a matter of fact but largely on the side of personal responsibility as a matter of values. I, however, would say that society and nature give people tools, but every person has the power to use the tools that they are given in their own way. For that reason, I would say that people are responsible for their own success or failure, but there are three important factors that go against this.
a. Every society should and does place limits on how responsible people are for their specific success or failures through laws. For example, if a person beats you up and steals your property, then you may be able to sue that person for the damages sufferred by yourself and your property while the government may prosecdute that same person for crimes against society itself for beating you up and taking your property.
b. Every society should and does place limits on how responsible people are for their general success or failures. If you do not have a job, then you may be eligible for welfare.
c. Both (a) and (b) exist because as people we need to work for each other. We need to work for each other because although we are usually considered responsible for our own success or failure, as a matter of fact, that is only a simplification of the truth (so that the economy and society may work better for all of us), which is that all of our successes or failures have causes that we cannot control.
d. All of our successes or failures have causes that we cannot easily control. To deny or resent this is stupidity and prideful-ness. (I would also point out that people who insist on personal responsibility are among the whiniest when somebody else has something that they want.)

2. Brooks gives people a guide for how we think about the relationships between personal responsibility and environmental causes. He says that in their 20s, people should think of themselves as being entirely in charge of their lives. Autobiographically, I am in my 20s. Autobiographically, I can look forward to a future where I do my best in the low-status life that I hope to assume. Autobiographically, I am aware of my responsibility for my failures and I have an unusual interest in time travel so that I can go back in time and be a good person, starting not with my 20s but even before then when I started college. I will do this because I know that GOD is the greatest of all causes and His will will be done for the person who has faith.