If he does so, he is a responsible person. –In this way the individual is made aware of the stake the community has in his behavior and is afforded an opportunity to take that interest into account in directing his desires and making his plans. The individual then is (1) likely or liable to have to explain and justify his behavior, and is (2) liable or open to suffering consequent upon inability to make his explanation acceptable. Each community and organization informs its members what it regards as obnoxious, and serves notice upon them that they have to answer if they offend. His act is a matter that concerns others as well as himself, and they will prove their concern by calling him to account and if he cannot give a satisfactory and credible account of his intention, subject him to correction. He may do a given act, but if so, let him look out. He must stand the consequences, the disagreeable as well as the pleasant, the social as well as the physical. In its external aspect, responsibility is liability. –Freedom and responsibility have a relatively superficial and negative meaning and a relatively positive central meaning. His responsibility is greater because there are more demands for considering the consequences of his acts and more agencies for bringing home to him the recognition of consequences which affect not merely more persons individually, but which also influence the more remote and hidden social ties. His freedom is the greater, because the more numerous are the effective stimuli to action, and the more varied and the more certain the ways in which he may fulfill his powers. The more comprehensive and diversified the social order, the greater the responsibility and the freedom of the individual.
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