Responsibility is the human ability to make our own decisions. We have multiple responsibilities, both in the workplace and in our daily lives. Responsibility is lived individually and in a very personal way, in such a way that we assume responsibility as if it were an element of our own conscience. If we consider that it is necessary to fulfill the acquired commitments, the responsibility will become a kind of vigilant judge.
Responsibility involves making a decision about how we should act. However, there may be a law, a rule or a regulation that requires us to assume responsibility, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with it.
And we use the term co-responsibility when responsibility is not individual but is shared with another or other people. The most obvious example would be the role of men and women as parents, since both share their commitment in relation to their children. It is a shared moral obligation. Each of them is jointly responsible with respect to the child they have in common.
When there is a relationship of co-responsibility between two individuals or entities, both have the same obligations. Although sometimes it happens that one of the parties evades its responsibility and tries to disassociate itself from the agreement or pact between the two components. In these cases there is a conflict of interpretation, and it may happen that said conflict had to be clarified in the courts of justice, where a judge should evaluate whether the pact of shared responsibility has been fulfilled or not.
Stewardship can refer to a global commitment by a group of individuals. In a small town there are some people who take care of cleaning the streets, but it is the whole town that is jointly responsible for cleaning. The same thing happens at a higher level. It is all humanity that shares its responsibility in relation to the care of the planet and, therefore, there is a co-responsibility in this idea.
The general notion of stewardship provokes an inevitable controversy among some individuals. It is what happens when a person considers that they should not share a certain commitment with others, that is, when an individual tries to disassociate himself from the co-responsibility that he shares with others. This is the case within a group where some of its members do not comply with the joint agreement. It would be a case of a break in co-responsibility and most likely a conflict.
Shared stewardship as a general idea that involves all humanity as a whole is increasingly accepted. And it is logical that this is the case because human relationships already have a global character. It is the phenomenon of globalization, a kind of great network of co-responsibilities.
