Responsibility Without Collapse: 3 What Responsibility Actually Attaches To

By now, the first relief may have settled in: understanding is not the same as obligation. You can see, listen, and orient yourself to another’s perspective without immediately taking on the weight of their burdens.

But a new question arises almost instantly:

If understanding does not automatically generate obligation, then what does responsibility attach to?

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Not to persons, not to feelings

A common mistake is to assume that responsibility attaches directly to people or to the intensity of their suffering.

• We feel a moral pull whenever someone suffers.

• We feel accountable for the pain of friends, colleagues, or strangers.

• We assume the bigger the problem, the bigger our duty.

But these assumptions are misleading. Responsibility is not a matter of emotional proximity or moral sentiment.

Feeling for someone—whether empathy, sympathy, or distress—does not define the boundaries of your obligation. Acting on every feeling quickly becomes impossible.

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Responsibility attaches to positions, relations, and cuts

Here’s the subtle, but crucial shift: responsibility is structural rather than affective. It is anchored not in hearts, but in positions.

• Positions: the roles or locations you occupy in a network of relations. For example, as a manager, you have responsibility for certain outcomes, but not for everyone’s feelings in the office.

• Relations: the connections you have with others. Responsibility flows through interaction, collaboration, or mutual accountability, not through abstract moral intuition.

• Cuts: the boundaries that distinguish your locus of action from others’. These are not walls—they are orientational distinctions that make responsibility precise.

In short, responsibility is situated, relational, and bounded, not universal or infinite.

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Why structural attachment matters

Why is this distinction important? Because without it, responsibility collapses under its own weight.

• If responsibility were universal, it would be morally infinite. You would always be failing.

• If responsibility were sentimental, it would be chaotic. You would act according to intensity rather than relevance.

• If responsibility ignored cuts, it would absorb you completely. You would be lost in other people’s stakes.

Structural attachment provides precision, allowing you to act effectively without collapse.

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The principle in practice

Consider two examples:

1. A workplace example
   You understand that a colleague is struggling with a personal issue. You may feel concern. But your responsibility attaches only to what falls within your relational position—your role, your commitments, and the boundaries of what you can influence. You may offer support, but you are not obliged to solve their entire life.

2. A social example
   You learn about a systemic injustice. You can understand its impact, advocate, or act where your position affords influence—but you are not responsible for eradicating every instance of the injustice everywhere.

In both cases, the cut—the boundary between your locus of responsibility and what lies beyond it—is what allows disciplined, sustainable action.

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The bridge to the next post

Now that we have clarified where responsibility attaches, the natural next question is:

How do we formalise or maintain that boundary—so that we can act without overstepping, without collapsing, and without abandoning care?

The answer is the Responsible Cut: the structural analogue to the empathic cut, which allows ethical action without overextension.

That is what Post 4 will explore.