Accountability

[Ghel]

This rant was inspired by a post on Customers Suck. I thought it might spark debate, so I moved my response here.

Here, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with the world today. Accountability.

It is the threat of consequences (not necessarily physical violence) for our actions that makes people behave in a moral, polite manner. It could be something as simple as, "if I hit my little sister, she's going to cry," or as big as the religious notions of judgment, heaven, and hell.

The problem is, the greater the disconnect between the offender's action and the result of that action, the harder it is for the offender to recognize cause and effect. That is why, when training a puppy or a small child, you have to reprimand them immediately when they behave poorly. This disconnect is allowed to continue by lax parenting, the anonymity of the internet, and even my local newspaper, when it allows unsigned editorials to be printed.

Unfortunately, many adults have never been held accountable for their actions. They don't realize that there are consequences for their actions, and continue on with the offending behavior. But, then, I suppose many people don't think that far ahead.

[BroomJockey]

I love this link.

http://students.usm.maine.edu/bmcpha...f_morality.htm

Ideally, a person shouldn't need consequences to realize something is wrong, but society's very focused on punishing people. That means most people never graduate past either fear of punishment, or the law and order stages of morality. Some companies and families do rewards instead, and so get the "Good boy/Girl" stage. It sounds hokey, but people who get the "Good work is its own reward" treatment are more likely to internalize morality and not require outside influence (laws, religion, threat of force, etc) to keep them in line.

[Ghel]

I wasn't just thinking about morals. I was also thinking about consequences that, while they could be categorized as good or bad, wouldn't be categorized as rewards or punishments. For example, if you neglect to change your car's oil, wear and tear on the engine is a direct consequence. Most people wouldn't consider that a punishment, and it has nothing to do with morals, but it is a consequence.

Some people have a hard time understanding that B is a direct or indirect consequence of A.

[BroomJockey]

I wasn't just thinking about morals.

<snip>

Some people have a hard time understanding that B is a direct or indirect consequence of A.

They're tied together, however.

People aren't taught that actions have long-term, lasting effects. Discipline is an immediate reinforcer of behaviour. Since people are taught that way, they carry it over to other things as well. "I didn't change the oil in my car right on time, but it's still good. Might as well push it a little each time." *car's engine dies* "Huh. I wonder what happened." They can't draw conclusions to anything delayed because they were never taught the skills, and that goes right back to one of the first instances of cause and effect people are taught about. After all, if you think about it from a certain point of view, consequences are the punishment of your actions, enforced by causality rather than human intervention, so you'd require to actually connect the events yourself over a long term. The baser parts of the human brain aren't wired for that. It's why taste aversion is such a strong motivator that you might have to avoid a food for years after it supposedly caused a case of food poisoning, even if that wasn't actually the cause. Your brain's subconsciously linked the most recent food to the illness.