Concepts of Responsibility for Others and Their Social Implications

FAIN: FT-12704-75

Mary Jo Bane
President and Fellows of Harvard College (Cambridge, MA 02138-3800)

To study and write about how concepts of responsibility tor others develop and find expression in the public and private institutions of contemporary America. Over time, American families have become smaller and more isolated. P.I. believes these trends both reflect and shape the obligations and responsibilities people feel toward each other--people feel intense responsibility toward immediate family members, and a general but impersonal sense of duty toward the "unfortunate". This can have harmful effects on society, leading, for example to impersonal care for large numbers of dependent sick and old people, punitive and degrading welfare laws and increasing numbers of fortress enclaves where people live in isolation protected by paid