The Responsible Actor as "Tortured Soul"

Abstract

"Administrative responsibility " connotes multiple and even conflicting meanings, including (a) political responsibility, which embodies the virtue of duty; (b) professional responsibility, embodying the virtue of integrity; and (c) personal responsibility, which reflects the qualities of self-awareness and authentic relationship. The theory of countervailing responsibility holds that any one of these three meanings is not only inadequate for a full understanding of responsible action, it also becomes pathological unless it is "countervailed" by each of the other two meanings. Drawing from the fictional exploits of C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower, the article explores the subtle and complex relationships among the virtues and pathologies associated with the three meanings of responsibility. The intended contributions of the article are (a) to show why responsible action should not be equated with morally or legally correct action, and (b) to argue that responsibility is both a psychological issue and an intellectual or cognitive one.

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