Nurture, Nature and Personal Responsibility

I haven't posted for a few days, because our five-week-old son has been ill and it's consumed so much of our time. During that time it's been amazing to notice how there are signs of his personality even at this early age. We've noticed this largely by comparison with his big sister. He seems very jumpy in contrast to her. A mere cough and he will be out of his skin. You can creep up on her from behind and surprise her but she won't be fazed. She is like her mum, he is like his dad.

It's made me realise something about the givenness of personality. The Myers Briggs Type Indicator claims that you basically always have the same personality. This stuff points to the 'nature' side of things.

At the same time I've been acutely aware for years that 'nurture' - our environment, our upbringing and so on - has major effects on us. I know it in my own life. I have seen it in others. So I actually believe that nature and nurture are both important in understanding the human condition. It's not either/or, it's both/and.

The one thing I find frequently missing from the debate is personal responsibility. We may not be able to help our nature, or the things around us in our environment that have either a beneficial or a deleterious effect upon us, but some people then use those things to steer the blame for things away from themselves. Have we lost all notion of personal responsibility? I may not be responsible for how I am made and I may not be able to help my environment and my upbringing, but surely I am still responsible for my choices, responses and actions. It's convenient to pass the blame, but if we give away the notion of personal responsibility we might just as well live by the law of the jungle.