The Axiom Of Responsibility
Individuals Demonstrate Valid Behavior
By Taking Responsibility
For Themselves And Their Children

Magna Sententia places a great deal of value on personal responsibility (i.e. including the right people in your life, admitting and honoring your limitations, setting attainable goals for yourself, as well as taking responsibility for your daily needs, financial well-being, future, health, happiness, actions, and children). This sounds like a whole lot of work (and it is!), much more work than letting someone else take charge of all these things. So what's the benefit? What has personal responsibility ever done for us?

Well, there is the simple fact that we get more enjoyment out of things (goods or services) we appreciate, and we can't fully appreciate a good or service unless we understand its true value, which isn't its price tag but rather the time, work, and sacrifice it took to acquire or perform it. There is no way to understand time, work, and sacrifice unless we have personally experienced them, and personal responsibility forces us to experience them. More personal responsibility = more appreciation = more enjoyment.

Also, we feel better about ourselves if our lives have meaning, and our lives can't have meaning unless what we do matters. If we are responsible for whom we include in our lives, our daily needs and financial well-being, our health and happiness, etc., then our choices matter. More personal responsibility = more meaningful lives = more self-esteem.

But there is something even more important: namely, personal responsibility's direct relationship to freedom. Very few people would argue with the notion that humans naturally desire to be free, and it's easy to see why. With more freedom comes more choice, and thus more say in our futures. (And when applied to the economy, more innovation, production, and upward mobility, as well as higher standards of living overall, but that's a topic for another day. Don't even get me started on health care.) However, freedom has its price; there is no free lunch. If we are free to make good choices, we are also free to make poor ones. With the freedom to succeed comes the freedom to fail, and what we make of ourselves and our lives becomes our responsibility. (Even when bad things happen to us that are beyond our control, we are still responsible for how we handle it.) More personal responsibility = more freedom = more control over our lives.

It is also true that less personal responsibility = less freedom = less control over our lives. If we let someone else take responsibility for all of our needs, we will have little (or no) say in how they are met. We can't have it both ways, and to me, the choice seems pretty obvious.

Ellie Sherise
Co-Creator of Magna Sententia
Co-Author of Magna Sententia: The Logical Cure for Our Society