Physical vs Moral Explanations

People often use physical explanations instead of moral explanations. It’s one of the main ways they dodge accountability. They hinder their own progress that way.

Physical explanations attribute causes to physical objects or their attributes, like speed. Moral explanations, on the other hand, often refer to responsibility. Don’t fudge the two.

Here are some examples to illustrate the difference.

Say someone on your team at work arrives late to a meeting and says, ‘Sorry I’m late, traffic was bad.’ While it may be true that traffic physically prevented them from arriving on time, whose responsibility was it to check traffic conditions before leaving for work?

I once discovered mold in the washer of an apartment I had just moved into. The head maintenance guy ‘explained’ how the mold got there: ‘The previous tenant closed the washer door, trapping moisture inside.’ That may explain the outcome physically, but whose responsibility was it to ensure that apartments are free of mold before renting them out?

The driver of a car may say, ‘I crashed because the road was slippery.’ But who was driving too fast for the conditions? Whose responsibility was it to ensure safe driving speeds? Not the road’s.

A cook may say, ‘The food burned because the oven runs hot.’ Sure, but who’s responsible for adjusting cook times and monitoring oven temp?

A texter may blame a spelling error on autocorrect. But whose responsibility is it to ensure correct spelling? The texter’s, not his phone’s. (There’s additional blame on the programmer of the misfiring autocorrect, but that blame doesn’t absolve the texter of their own responsibility.)

An alcoholic may blame his addiction on alcohol and the physical dependency it creates. But the alcohol didn’t force itself on him. He made the choice to drink. And even if somebody else forced him to get hooked on alcohol somehow, it’s still his own responsibility to quit.

Evolutionary psychologists want to blame their genes for their behavior. This is an especially bad case because genes account for very little of our behavior – ideas are more powerful than genes. So even the physical explanation has very limited application. As a moral explanation, dodging accountability by blaming your genes for your own behavior is pathetic.

Some neuroscientists blame our decisions on our neurocircuitry. But who’s responsible for your decisions? You, not your neurons. You command your neurons, not the other way round. Some people actually try to blame their own brains for their faults and think this somehow absolves them. Ridiculous.

These are all just bad excuses. Some people don’t like the responsibility of agency. They would rather blame physics than take responsibility. They prefer to lack a sense of freedom because it ‘relieves’ them of responsibility. But recognizing and meeting your responsibilities frees you and helps you correct errors.

The physical explanation may well be true. For example, traffic may well be the physical reason someone is late to a meeting. But that’s the trick: if the physical explanation is technically true, it’s harder to argue against. That’s why it’s better to ask whose responsibility something is because it brings your focus to what really matters.

If you know people who try to dodge accountability in ways similar to the examples above, you should reevaluate your choice to associate with them. There are better people around: those who take responsibility for their ideas and actions.

What are some examples of things you truly are not responsible for? You cannot choose the circumstances of your birth: you cannot pick your parents or your birthplace. You cannot choose your skin color, eye color, or hair color. If you have bad parents, that’s not your fault, but it’s still your responsibility to make the best of what you’re given, at least once you’re older. If you have an eye color you don’t like, you can buy contacts to change it. If you don’t like your hair color, you can dye it. And it’s your responsibility to earn the money you need to buy contacts or hair dye.