Now, in common parlance, minimum standards of this sort are called duties. I cannot see how you can have more than a linguistic quibble about the matter.
Perhaps the "quibble" is over the framework. The "duties" you just cited don't including my having a duty to apologize to you for not living up to your expectations. They are not similar in character to the duties we've been discussion. Being "blameworthy" for not living up to one's human potential, for squandering one's life, is another matter. I have no obligation to you except that which I assume by contract, nor have you any to me. Blame doesn't really have much meaning unless person A is blaming person B for doing something to person A or a third party in whom person A has an interest. So, while I could blame myself for failing to be all I can be, and perhaps my offspring could be considered interested parties in that, there's no role in it for you. While we can apply the words, blameworthy and duty, in both contexts, we're really looking at two different things. "Falling below commonly recognized standards of individual development" is quite different from mutual social obligations. Even though they are different, I'd be hard pressed to find any "duty" in individual development. While I personally value it, if other people don't want to develop, that's their business outside the framework of their development status keeping them from fulfilling a contract with others. I support the prerogative of individuals to waste their lives, although it greatly saddens me and I would do whatever I could to disabuse them of doing so. If there's any duty in there, it might be to God or to one's parents or to oneself. I think that's outside the scheme you've been pushing, or no more than a minor component.
My apologies for that stream-of-consciousness response. <g> |
