Thoughts and Questions on Social Responsibility

[brasssun]

I've been thinking about social responsibility recently. What does the individual owe society, what does one individual owe every other individual? This comes up because I have three individuals in my life who I have reason to believe are in some kind of trouble. (At least the alcoholic/junkie is the easiest one to deal with because there's nothing

Comments

[brasssun]

I think the situation with the begger is different, since there is a person who is specifically asking, nay, begging for assistance, and when we pass them by we are specifically refraining from helping them. The shame of that is fairly well-defined, and the answer is easy: give them something. Even if it's not a lot, maybe some spare change or even just a smile to acknowledge their existence.

It is a serious problem that does need fixing, but the problem is at least defined as a problem. The mental illness situation is much more complicated as you try to define what rights a person has over their own happiness or misery and how their happiness or misery affects others.

If someone says, "I'm an alcoholic, it makes me miserable, I know it, and I'm still not going to do anything about it," then do we as society have a right to force them to change? Should we have the right? Because they're not just hurting themselves, they're also hurting everyone who likes them. When you were working with the mentally ill or those with drug abuse problems, was there ever any success with people who didn't want to be there to begin with?