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From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Hurting the other by a "no"
Message-ID: <1657@hao.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Jul-85 15:22:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: hao.1657
Posted: Thu Jul 25 15:22:08 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jul-85 00:34:31 EDT
References: <5557@cbscc.UUCP> <ihlpg.816> <591@unc.UUCP>
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 21
Keywords: Emotions Responsibility

> What disturbs me most about this school of thinking that
> you appear to be espousing is that when you claim Joe has
> complete responsibility for his emotions, you are freeing yourself
> from any responsibility for them, thereby leaving yourself
> free to hurt him with impunity.  

  I do not believe that this follows. Saying that Joe has final responsibility
for his feelings is not the same thing as saying that what I do has no effect.
By being deliberately hurtful, I might create the possibility for him to
choose to feel pain that might not have otherwise existed. Similarly,
by being nice to him I can create the possibility for him to choose to feel
good. Yes, what you do *does* have an effect on the feelings of others, but
that does not change the fact that the *final* responsibility for how they
choose to react to what you do is theirs, not yours. This is *not* a license
to go around being deliberately hurtful. There is no contradiction between
saying that what you do may affect others and saying that they are responsible
for their own feelings. The "missing link" is that human beings are imperfect
and do not always make the choices that will make them the happiest (or
feel the least pain).

--Greg