RESPONSIBILITY

The importance of words.

Terms are often abused, or used, without full awareness or by pretending not to fully understand them.

Today we intend to do a little in-depth study on the word RESPONSIBILITY.

The term responsibility derives from the Latin respònsus, past participle of the verb respòndere, to respond, that is, in a general philosophical meaning, to commit to answering, to someone or to oneself, for one's actions and the consequences resulting from them.

ARISTOTLE

In philosophy the concept of responsibility implies that of freedom and free will, in the sense that everyone can be held responsible for their actions if this occurred on the basis of free choice and not due to necessary conditioning due to physical, psychic or socioeconomic laws. 

In fact, in the latter case, the theory of determinism excludes personal responsibility or attenuates it by attributing it not entirely to the individual but, for example, to the social community.

Aristotle had already posed the problem of the voluntariness or otherwise of the harmful action when he argued that if the cause of the action is within us we are responsible for it, the opposite if the cause is outside of us, meaning that a subject is responsible in the moment in which:

▪the cause of the act is internal to the subject, that is, if the subject is not forced to act by someone or something external;

▪the act is not the result of ignorance, that is, if the subject is also aware of the action he performs.

Max Weber

Analyzing the relationship between ethics and politics, he calls "ethics of conviction" that which refers to moral values ​​such that the action inspired by them can be evaluated as just or unjust, without taking into account the possible consequences. 

This ethic is found in all those ideologies, political or religious, which express absolute principles such that it is impossible to doubt them so as to justify revolutionary action or blind obedience to imperatives. 

Then there is, according to the German sociologist, the "ethics of responsibility" which is expressed in social life where the possible consequences of one's actions must be carefully evaluated based on the principle of "acting rationally with respect to the purpose".

If we observe the responsibilities referred to in Legislative Decree 81/08, they do not deviate at all from the principles mentioned above, both of a professional, organizational and ethical nature.

Manager's responsibilities

The manager, as an employee, has a contractual responsibility towards his employer (internal responsibility) which derives from the law, the collective agreement and the individual employment contract. 

He must carry out his work with correctness and good faith and is subject to the obligations of loyalty and diligence.

Legislative Decree no. 81/2008 identifies the manager as the organizational guarantor of workplace safety: that is, the person who, in the context of the safety obligation divided primarily between employers, managers, supervisors, is, even de facto (art. 299 Legislative Decree . n. 81/2008) the "person who, by virtue of professional skills and hierarchical and functional powers appropriate to the nature of the task assigned to him, implements the employer's directives by organizing the work activity and supervising it".

Responsibilities of the person in charge

The person in charge is "a person who, due to professional skills and within the limits of hierarchical and functional powers appropriate to the nature of the task conferred on him, supervises the work activity and guarantees the implementation of the directives received, checking their correct execution by the workers and exercising a functional power of initiative".

It is therefore good to focus on the role we take on or are given, carrying out the tasks entrusted, rather than looking for ways that lead to not having responsibilities.

Useless efforts.