Social responsibility

“ The social organization system and legal regime, ranging from ancestral family and community principles and ethical and moral standards, passing through production and trade relations, solidarity and social responsibility, forms of community and state administration; up to a very complex system of laws, rules, uses and customs that embodied free work by the community, the stewardships and charges system, which allowed the orderly and balanced community life as well as relationships and exchanges with other communities or states. ”

“ Community Responsibility Finally social workers have come to the conclusion, many of them, that in most cases these are not private problems at all but socio-economic ones for which the social system, through government, is responsible. ”

“ The nation gives individuality an increased scope and meaning by offering individuals a chance for effective service, such as they could never attain under a system of collective irresponsibility. Thus under a system of collective responsibility the process of social improvement is absolutely identified with that of individual improvement. ”

“ The extension of the sense of public responsibility, the realization that reform must come in all the interlocking activities of a highly organized business, political and social life has tempted some people to think that the days of social work are numbered or to seek out for it some highly specialized or recondite function. But if we are right in ascribing to it this function of challenging all forms of service to reach and satisfy individual needs it may be more important in the future than in the past. ”

“ These are duties which I hold every man is bound, in honesty to his family and in moral responsibility to society, to perform, unless he have, by some other means, laid up a provision to supply the wants of those who in his lifetime look to him for their support. ”

“ It must learn, above all, that the state, and the individuals who are temporarily responsible for the action of the state, must be granted all the power necessary to redeem that responsibility. Individual opportunity and social welfare both depend upon the learning of this lesson ”

“ Everywhere we are commencing to hear of "social duty," of obligation to the lesser and unfortunate, of the responsibility of the leaders to the led, of the well to the sick, of the law-abiding to the criminal. ”

“ I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political, or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, property, labor, exchange, capital, wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same thing—the solution of the social problem is in liberty. ”

“ In the first place, leaving individuals to the operation of the common motives, we may labor at the social institutions, to adjust them to the rule, that, each seeking his own, after the common apprehension of present interests, may do so consistently with acting the part of a good citizen—contributing something to the general welfare ”

“ Our policies must be premised on and must reinforce values such as family, hard work, integrity, personal responsibility. ”

“ That which, when we become capable of reflection, we term conscience, consists in pleasure in forms of action furthering the welfare of society—forms gradually moulded to habit with the development of social relations,—and in a corresponding pain at the realization of having failed of such action; the knowledge of the demand, by society as a whole or by a part of society, of action in accord with the general welfare, and the sense of the justice of this demand, constituting the feeling of obligation and duty. ”

“ If we trace out the laws that govern human life in society, we find that in the largest as in the smallest community they are the same. We find that what seem at first sight like divergences and exceptions are but manifestations of the same principles. And we find that everywhere we can trace the social law, it runs into and conforms with the moral law; that in the life of a community, justice infallibly brings its reward and injustice its punishment. ”

“ Once let us realize that it is the real interest of the individual to act in harmony with the total well-being of the society to which he belongs, and that it is the true interest of this generation to care for succeeding generations—that human nature contains desires making for the realization of this wider self which it would be painful to thwart—ethical conduct is at once justified, and the false antagonism of individual and social welfare disappears. ”

“ We are now in a position to describe how man came by that social modus vivendi which we call utility, and define as all that makes for the continued existence and progressive welfare of the community. Utility is scientifically "the result of the conflict of individual rights, with survival of the fittest." ”

“ Use of wealth individual.—It is necessary to realize that the social organization is maintained solely for the sake of individuals. All study of welfare and illfare is a study of individual human beings. The mutual relations of these human beings in society are means to individual life, growth and enjoyment. Even the total power of a generation in society is dependent upon how the individual wants of individual members of that society are met. ”

“ Look at the next safeguard of society. Setting aside the institution of Slavery, and the statutes relating thereto, I think we have the most righteous establishments in the world. By no means perfect, they produce the greatest variety of action in the individuals, the greatest unity of action in society, and afford an opportunity to achieve the purpose of social and individual life. ”

“ I promise to further social welfare; to promote the idea that prosperity consists essentially in persons and only incidentally in things; to be true to this faith in public and in private, in work and in play ”

“ In any conceivable state of things, the welfare of every society, the total means of enjoyment at its disposal, must depend upon the energy, intelligence, and trustworthiness of its constituent members. ”

“ What inherent worth and solid dignity are ascribed to the social of their nature! In every man with whom I may have to do, I am to recognize the presence of another self, whose case I am to make my own. And thus I am to dispose of whatever claims he may urge upon me.
Thus, in accordance with the Golden Rule, mankind are naturally brought, in the voluntary use of their powers and resources, to promote each other's welfare. ”

“ Since, then, the welfare of the body social depends mainly on the relative smallness of Classes D and E, the selfish and the noxious, it follows that an important, if not the chief, duty to society, for all who really and reasoningly desire the well-being and progress of the community, is so to regulate their conduct as to cause these classes to become relatively smaller and smaller. ”

“ In such a society individuals and communities at all levels will be schooled and experienced in self-discipline and prepared to follow conduct patterns that emphasize the principle: live and help others to live to the fullest and the utmost.
Beyond civilization lies the recognition and practice of the principle that the welfare of the whole takes precedence over the demands of any of its parts. At the same time, each part or segment of the social whole has specific rights that the directors of the whole are bound to recognize, respect, defend and implement. ”

“ And the prosperity of individuals, of families, and of nations, for this life and the life to come, depends more on the proper control and regulation of these principles than on any other social or moral duty. ”

“ But when men living in society once become aware that their welfare depends upon, two opposing tendencies of equal importance—the one restraining, the other encouraging, individual freedom—the question "What are the functions of Government?" is translated into another—namely, What ought we men, in our corporate capacity, to do, not only in the way of restraining that free individuality which is inconsistent with the existence of society, but in encouraging that free individuality which is essential to the evolution of the social organization? ”

“ And the more numerous the body, and the more changeable its component parts, the more difficult it will be to preserve the personal responsibility, as well as the uniform action, of the successive members to the great objects of the public welfare. ”

“ If you propose that the industrious and idle, the good and bad, the wise and foolish, should share equally in social advantages, the reply is equally obvious, that such a scheme, if possible, would be injurious to the qualities on which human welfare depends. If you say that men should be rewarded solely according to their intrinsic merits, we must ask, do you mean to abstract from the adventitious advantages of education, social surroundings, and so forth, or to take men as they actually are, whatever the circumstances to which their development is owing? ”

“ On the contrary, the communities in which the reason has been most cultivated, and in which the idea of social duty has been most powerful, are those which have most strongly asserted the freedom of action of the individual—the liberty of each to govern his conduct by his own feelings of duty, and by such laws and social restraints as his own conscience can subscribe to. ”

“ The obligations on the part of the community extend to the provision of employment, mental and physical health care, social security, fair wages, rest and recreation, and a host of other reasonable expectations on the part of the individual members of society. ”

“ Sanctioned by law, by the custom of long tradition, by economic and social valuations, the home calls for personal devotion of will and purpose from every individual for the welfare of the group of which he is a privileged member. ”

“ It is a situation in which millions voluntarily place themselves—a situation of vast and complicated responsibilities—involving numerous relationships and duties of the highest imaginable importance, upon which depend not only the domestic and social happiness of individuals, but the moral condition of whole communities and nations. ”

“ Thus the sociological view of Ethics supplements the physical, the biological, and the psychological views, by disclosing those conditions under which only associated activities can be so carried on, that the complete living of each consists with, and conduces to, the complete living of all.
At first the welfare of social groups, habitually in antagonism with other such groups, takes precedence of individual welfare; and the rules of conduct which are authoritative for the time being, involve incompleteness of individual life that the general life may be maintained. ”

“ It is here that we find the next duty of the worker. Personally, and through his organization, he must carry out a campaign of education that will help to develop a more alert social conscience—that will arouse all good citizens to the justice of his demands, and so frustrate the efforts of the rascals who, greed-inspired, exist chiefly to set the moral laws at naught. ”

“ At the same level of importance is the need to establish a viable unity of economic, cultural, and psychological significance, a framework, sanctioned by religious and political entities, for carrying out obligations significant to the community. These, and a number of additional elements, such as morality based on the pragmatics of health, inter-generational exchange of information and aid, social functions ensuring survival and continuity through cooperation and understanding with other families, are tightly connected. ”

“ Certain abuses must be removed, and certain conditions remedied. In any advanced economic society the State must take action, has taken action, and will in future extend its action. The social conscience, to anyone who reads history, is a real and growing force. ”

“ Briefly, a wholesome social condition implies that every social organ discharges a useful function; it renders some service to the community which is equivalent to the support which it derives; brain and stomach each get their due share of supply; and there is a thorough reciprocity between all the different members of the body. But what kind of equality should be desired in order to secure this desirable organic balance? ”

“ The struggle for existence and well-being is regulated by social laws. If these were perfect, each individual could satisfy his wants in an equitable measure, that is to say in the measure of his faculties, his labor, and the service he renders to the community. ”

“ In other words, as a return for what you wish to have society do for you, what can you do for society? This is a very important question—more important to you than to society. The question is, whether you will be a member of society by right, or by courtesy. If you have so mean a spirit as to be content to be a beneficiary of society—to receive favors and to confer none—you have no business in the society to which you aspire. ”

“ The release of the individual from the cares and anxieties of a state of imperfect protection sets his faculties free to be employed in any new effort for improving his own state and that of others, while the same cause, by attaching him to social existence, and making him no longer see present or prospective enemies in his fellow creatures, fosters all those feelings of kindness and fellowship towards others, and interest in the general well-being of the community, which are such important parts of social improvement. ”