Re: Responsibility

Sorry for the slow response. I'm in the midst of 5 weeks of living out of a suitcase and I won't have extremely regular access to the internet for a few more weeks.

I would agree that in some cases feelings of responsibility could be explained by wanting to maintain the status quo. I am more interested though in our judgment of another person's responsibility (rather than that persons feelings of responsibility), for instance when somebody punches us in the face unprovoked. Can we judge them as having done something wrong? I would say yes, and I would probably restore justice with a (much harder) punch back. But if the other guy is simply responding to biological impulses (and thus has no free will) I have no right to be mad at his blatant disregard for my superior strength and prowess, and cannot claim that he did anything wrong. This seems to be too much at-odds with my experience as a human.

The other events that can't be explained by the idea of the 'status quo responsibility' are the situations that we can look back on and proclaim to be wrong, for instance the case of a junior high kid in a group that bullies smaller kids. In this case can we assign any responsibility to the kid who, in an effort to maintain the status quo (and his popularity) goes along with the bullying? It seems clear to me that the better path would be for that kid to stand up to the bullies rather than following the status quo, but again we can't make that claim if he is just following biological/social influences.

I agree though that the amount of responsibility could be altered by some of the outside influences, but we can't make any judgments of people's behaviors if they don't have free will, and if we believe that there is no such thing, then we would be unfair to judge anyone's actions or punish criminals.

You're right that writing this stuff is much harder, not just b/c it's slower but b/c our errors are displayed for all to see. It's good for us though I'm sure.

Also, as we begin Introduction to Philosophy, here is a link for some background info about the author: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Maritain

And I'd like to propose a schedule for reading that will be pretty modest b/c I know everyone's busy, especially Mike. Let me know if you think I should change this at all. And Fraser, did you want me to mail the book to you?

Intro to Philosophy Reading schedule:
June 23: Through page 20
June 30: p. 40
July 7: 60
July 14: 80
July 21: 100
July 28: 120
Aug. 4: 140
Aug. 11: 160
Aug. 18: 180
Aug. 25: Review important parts, start next book, etc.