ABSTRACT
The concept of obligation, like the concepts of duty and honor, is less inclusive than the concept of responsibility. Any statement which asserts or denies that a human being is responsible or that he has responsibility, the author will call a responsibility-statement, R-statement for economy. The ascription of 'deontic' responsibility sometimes involves the assertion of liability for sanction or interference, but not always. However, some ascriptions of deontic responsibility do not include this notion of liability: consider the situation of a group of desperate and dispirited revolutionaries who have lost hope of success. These sample sentences are, of course, elliptical, abbreviated ways of making reference to behavior of various kinds. Such explications have often been attempted with the use of synonyms like 'answerability', and 'accountability'. Rockefeller was responsible for the founding of the University of Chicago; he may well be liable for praise for it. The author thinks it is clear that no deontic R-statement 'necessarily' implies an attributive one.
