> If you were in the determinist camp, believing that all that one does was predetermined by prior environmental causes, could you still hold people responsible for their actions?
This is a good example of where over-thinking a topic in abstract terms causes some people to lose sight of the big picture.
Take a step back and think about what you’re saying: If nobody could be held accountable for their own actions, does the concept of accountability disappear? It’s a farcical claim.
But you’re right, this is essentially what is being argued: By invoking therapy speak and formal sounding labels, the person wants you to kindly box up any accountability or consequences under the label and direct them at the abstract notion of the labeled condition, instead of the person responsible.
This is why I experienced so many people getting worse at punctuality after learned the phrase “time blindness”: They used the therapy speak to transform themselves into the victim, at which point the pressure to improve their situation diminished because they believe victims couldn’t be blamed. The temptation becomes strong to label everything negative this way as it’s a nice escape hatch to externalize accountability.
This is a good example of where over-thinking a topic in abstract terms causes some people to lose sight of the big picture.
Take a step back and think about what you’re saying: If nobody could be held accountable for their own actions, does the concept of accountability disappear? It’s a farcical claim.
But you’re right, this is essentially what is being argued: By invoking therapy speak and formal sounding labels, the person wants you to kindly box up any accountability or consequences under the label and direct them at the abstract notion of the labeled condition, instead of the person responsible.
This is why I experienced so many people getting worse at punctuality after learned the phrase “time blindness”: They used the therapy speak to transform themselves into the victim, at which point the pressure to improve their situation diminished because they believe victims couldn’t be blamed. The temptation becomes strong to label everything negative this way as it’s a nice escape hatch to externalize accountability.