Responsibility
without blame

Monday's starting point: addiction involves use that persists despite severe costs to a person's own good.

To understand the harm, we need to understand the life the person values.

So, does the person endorse their use or wish it were different?

A first distinction: wanting a drug and wanting that desire to govern your action can come apart.

Does Alex's willingness show that using is good for Alex?

Pickard asks a further question: does use fit what is actually good for this person?

Willingness alone cannot settle that question.

Someone may sincerely endorse using. Pickard identifies two reasons to question that endorsement.

Jake's case raises a harder question: what if years of use have changed the life someone wants?

Why should the earlier self have the final say?

Values shaped by addiction can still be our own. We need a further reason to judge them bad for us.

But if we still disagree about what is good for someone, who gets to decide?

Suppose sustained discussion leaves us disagreeing about whether someone's drug use is good for them.

Disagreement by itself is not enough. What evidence would be?

Giving someone a say in their own life still leaves a question: how may others respond?

Riley understands serious costs, says using is worth them, and declines a friend's offer of help.

What would justify each response, and who may make it?

Can we take harm seriously while respecting the agency of the person who caused it?

Hold people answerable for harm and support their agency for change.

Pickard developed this stance in a therapeutic community.

To hold someone responsible without blame, we need to separate a judgment from a response.

Responsibility: what the person understood and could do.
Active blame: a punishing attitude toward the person.

Anger can express protest while leaving room for an account, repair, and care.

Before deciding how to respond to a wrong, we need to establish what was actually owed.

What is owed? What is wanted?

Hurt matters even when it does not establish wrongdoing.

Care can coexist with boundaries. Sometimes leaving is justified.

Even when someone owes us something, the cost of meeting that obligation can matter.

A bank teller can refuse a robber's demand.
The robber threatens the teller's life.

Does being able to refuse settle what the teller should do?

Avoiding withdrawal can be an immediate benefit of use. Its effect on the person's life overall remains a further question.

Cannabis can also produce withdrawal, including physical symptoms.

If acting differently is costly, what could make a reasonable expectation easier to meet?

In both versions, Jordan understands the obligation and wants to change.

What might become easier? What remains uncertain?

Could an expectation of change be unfair even when it aims to help?

Support depends partly on other people and institutions. They may bear responsibility too.

If we help sustain unjust conditions, our standing to blame may be compromised.

Who could make the alternative reachable?
What gives them a responsibility to do so?

We can now combine the questions about harm, obligations, agency, and support.

The colleague who covered the shift is also Jordan's friend.

Write two or three sentences the friend could say.

Does your response recognize both people's agency and needs?

The response must also be fair to the friend. What may the friend refuse to keep doing?

What distinguishes a protective boundary from payback?

How much may we ask of a friend who is already exhausted?