As one of the Jerry Springer generation, I have grown up imbued with the idea that everone is solely and entirely responsible for their own actions. You are responsible for what you choose. However, recently I have begun to wonder whether this is an honest way to live life, or whether it is actually a hoax perpetrated on each other in order to pin blame in a neat way.... and according to a particular moral code.

Is personal responsibility at truism?

If someone was holding a gun to your head and told you to do something you knew was wrong, are your reactions your own choice?
If someone strapped a bomb to you and told you to rob a bank, are you responsible for your choice to commit a robbery?
OOh thats an extreme one...
Similar wildly hypothetical situation questions might be:

If someone told you to do something they want or they wont love you any more, are you entirely responsible for the choice you make as a result.

If some one tells you to **** off, can you choose whether or not to take it to heart? Or is yours a gut reaction

If a child begs its Mum for days to buy a particular thing, is the mum entirely responsible for the choice she makes in the end.

Our our choices are own, or are they often so heavily influenced by others that they are barely our own choices any more?

When someone does something wrong people will often retort "Well noone held a gun to your head; you chose to do it". I never can think of anything to say to that, but in the back of my mind Im still thinking "So-n-so made me do it" "I had to do it because X made me feel so guilty if I didnt" "tHEY PUT SO MUCH PRESSURE ON ME, i FELT LIKE i HAD NO CHOICE."
One the one hand these would all seem to be childish excuses to wriggle out of ones responsiblities, but if someone comes into my life and affects me, shouldnt they take some credit for the affect on me? If someone punchers me on the nose do I choose to feel the pain. If someone acts in a way that hurts me, am I choosing to feel hurt? If I betray someone isnt it their choice whether they feel betrayed or not? If so then I should not be blamed for the betrayal, but if not then it proves that when we are influenced we are not responsible for out actions. Since we spend most of our lives being influenced by others, then it would seem logical that most of the time are choices are not made in isolation and therefore we are not entirely responsible for our choices.

Very true. For example, you might not want to go to work on Monday, and there's nothing forcing you to go, but you'll still be there. Is that personal choice, or is it part choice and part financial and social pressure?

When my eczema is severe I can't do certain things, like go swimming, is this personal choice or a constraint forced upon me by my genes?

Actually, there's not a lot that you have complete freedom of choice in. Everything seems to depend on at least another external condition. Can anyone prove me wrong on this?

i agree with you totaly

but if you do somting really bad and have to go to court they say "ignorence is no defense" so you would get the blame any way

I agree totally. The same could be said for temper. Take the Tony Martin case for example. Instead of saying he was protecting his property, he should have just said he lost his temper and therfore he wasn't responsible for his actions.

I totally disagree !!!!!

I think you do make the choice to do (or to not do) a thing.

If someone puts a gun to my head ... I do not have to comply with their demands.

It's just a case of weighing up the (percieved) consequenses or several courses of action and choosing the one that takes your fancy (do the bank robbery / die / attempt to disarm man with gun) ... it is a choice.

It's exactly the same mechanic as making a decision to ... for example ... have beans on toast for tea ... of go out and buy a KFC.

There is ALWAYS a choice ... it's just a question of severity.

Well said Jamie.

We can all sit back and blame the rest of the world for the situations we find ourselves in ("it was his fault", "I blame the Council", "she made me do it", whatever) and take no responsibility for ourselves, our actions or the consequences of our actions.

Or we can do something about it. We always have a choice. If you choose to do something because someone asks you to do it, it is still your choice ultimately.

Yes, of course we do make choices for all these things, but what Im really wondering about is how much we own and are responsible for these choices. Yes, with a gun held to our head we still 'choose' the outcome, but what we call a choice here is so powerfully ruled by outside influence that few would say are subsequent actions were our 'fault'. Another person has wrested the freedom of our choice almost completely away from us.

Maybe we cling to this idea of being responsible for our choices, only because to not believe it would be unthinkable. If we thought otherwise the World and his wife would go round doing whatever they wanted and say that their choices were not entirely their own and therefore they are not to blame. People would deliberately decide to confuse 'being influenced towards a particular choice' with 'making a selfish choice without wanting to accept blame for the consequences'. There are too many subtlties to leave the door open, so we adopt the sole-individual responsiblity stance, and set it in stone.

New credo:- Everyone and everything influences us all the time. Our choices are predicated by these influences, therefore our choices are never really our own.

...And in a spiritual sense...

Were Adam and Eve responsible for eating from the tree of knowledge - or did the serpent trick them? God certainly seems to be documented to think that man is responsible for his own Fall into free will... God would have turned the stones into bread and Cain and Able wouldnt have to have become farmers, otherwise. In the past, people needed the judging eye of God in order to check each others behaviour. Now, fewer people go round thinking that God has his beady eye on them, and the sole-individual responsiblity became necessary to pick up where God left off.

Like God, free will could be compared to the weather. We can see it working all around us all the time. Sometimes it seems to do what we want and we say that ITS REAL 'we have free will'; and other times when it doesnt do what we want we shrug our shoulders and say that - oh, well- it must just be part of the 'bigger picture'.

My friend Marc says he 'sees dead people'... he's a psychic. I asked if the dead could watch us and he said 'of course'. I said I was unhappy about this as I didnt want my grandmother to be watching me **** arse, or my father to see me wanking. Marc told me that the dead do see us doing these things, but that they also see through us like glass. They see straight into us and know why we do the things and behave the way we do: they dont judge us on the appearance of what we choose, but instead us for the whole of what we are. When he told me this I said I wished that living people could see into each other so easily, and he replied that, once were dead, *we will* !!

I dont know whether I believe that or not, but its a nice story....
..........WHOAAA! SIDETRACKED, OR WHAT!

I do not understand the thing about 'fault' ...

To my way of looking at things ... there is only choice, action and consequences of our actions ... and 'fault' does not play a part.

I think 'fault' is as useless as that other thing ... 'blame' ...

It's about your choice to be either empowered or a victim.

Scientifically, yes. There are just causes, actions and reactions. But dont all humans like to tag on blame fault culpability etc? Even if you dont 'blame' people, you probably give credit for things they do....which is completely irrational if we believe only in cause and effect.
Maybe thats not what you mean...?

Isn't it better to be more pragmatic and deal with the reality of what people can and do ... do to you !? ... and engage with reality on that level ...

Fault and blame are in your head ... 'after the fact' ... what good does it do you to find fault and blame other people !? (unless you're in a court of law).