| Most people who believe they have been coerced to contribute to welfare programs cry for tax relief, many people who believe they have been in desperate need of welfare benefits clamor for securing them, and more seriously, a large majority of people standing in the middle of the crossfire crave both tax cuts and benefits. Moreover, political parties and individual politicians in tight electoral competition have been accepting these mutually contradictory demands without serious consideration of their catastrophic consequences. Politicians are too responsive individually to their constituencies to be responsible collectively for a basic principle. The thesis addresses this problem, what I call "the disorder of responsibility" which has been embraced and defended by major liberal ideals. Responsibility in moral philosophy has meant an apology for something done by an actor(s). Responsibility as apology, however, is merely an attribute of the universe of responsibility. Recovering rich moral voices, (1) life-planning, (2) affection, and (3) apology, concealed in the statement, "I have responsibility for my life," I demonstrate what differences those voices can make in our understanding and practice of politics, justice, and liberal welfare state. The concept of "politics of responsibility" in which politics is concerned with how to share responsibility for life, presents a platform on which conflicting ideals, such as individual autonomy and social justice, put their old vocabularies aside, and find their new directions toward a better liberal mode of life in which individuals not only "ought to" be, but also "can" be responsible for their lives. |
