The Myth of Choice_ Personal Responsibility in a World of Limits - Kent Greenfield [68]
But let’s set aside the legal arguments and use Nicole’s case to question the political arguments around personal-responsibility-as-choice. Notice the contours of the school’s defense. It argued that Nicole’s act was an intervening act that protected the school from responsibility by breaking the chain of causation from any negligence on the school’s part to the ultimate event—Nicole’s death. It is fair to say that the school was asserting that Nicole’s choice—her “deliberate, intentional” act—meant that the responsibility for the suicide was hers and not theirs.
The school has a point. Nicole’s decision was certainly the most immediate cause of her own suicide. She would not have lost her life if she had refused the pact with her so-called friend, asked for help, admitted her despondency to her parents or counselors, or avoided the park that day.
But this argument misses something important. Many events have multiple causes and influences, and the responsibility for creating them is dispersed. Sometimes responsibility is shared. That was probably the case with Nicole’s suicide. She certainly made bad choices. But in all likelihood, so had her parents and so had school officials.
If our dedication to personal responsibility focuses our attention on Nicole, that’s fine. But if that focus causes us to ignore the role played by others in her suicide, then we’re allowing others who ought to share responsibility for the catastrophe to avoid that responsibility.
This is indeed what happens in much of the political discussion about personal responsibility. The last person in the causal chain—the last person to make a “deliberate, intentional” choice—is seen as holding all of the responsibility. To let the last person avoid all responsibility by pointing a finger upstream is usually a mistake. But it is also a mistake to allow the choosers upstream to avoid responsibility by pointing at the last chooser.
This is not an idle point. Recall the teenagers who sued McDonald’s for contributing to their obesity.15 The case was thrown out, and the suit was ridiculed in the media. The United States House of Representatives got so riled up about the suit—even though it was solitary and unsuccessful—that it drafted and passed a bill to stop copycat suits. Our national legislature thought that these suits were sufficiently dangerous to our country’s best interests that it rushed to the aid of fast-food companies. The bill was named the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act, also known as the Cheeseburger Bill. Its text included a congressional finding that “fostering a culture of acceptance of personal responsibility is one of the most important ways to promote a healthier society” and that such lawsuits were not only “legally frivolous” but “harmful to a healthy America.”16 The bill passed the House in both 2004 and 2005 but never reached the floor in the Senate. Meanwhile, at least twenty-three states have passed their own cheeseburger bills protecting fast-food companies.17
Now let’s talk about shared responsibility. No one doubts that obesity is a severe problem in the United States. Recent studies show that perhaps two-thirds of Americans, 190 million people, are overweight or obese. Childhood obesity has tripled in the past thirty years. The problem is getting worse, not better.18
It seems to me that this problem cannot be laid solely at the feet of those of us who eat french fries, drink