Publisher's Synopsis
The value of "personal responsibility" increasingly stands at the center of contemporary discussions about distributive justice and the welfare state. While deep disagreements about who is responsible for which acts and outcomes persist, a wide range of thinkers accepts the normative premise that an individual's claim to assistance from the collectivity should depend, in part, on whether or not they have acted "responsibly" in the past.
Drawing on the recent history of moral and political philosophy, the social sciences, and political rhetoric, I argue that the current consensus around what I call the "responsibility framework" is a new phenomenon. In the postwar era, a conception of responsibility-as-duty emphasized each individual's obligation to contribute to the community. Today, hy contrast, the newer conception of responsibility-as-accountability emphasizes each individual's obligation, insofar as they are capable of doing so, to provide for their own material needs without outside assistance.
