Age of Responsibility

<p><b>A <i>New York Times Book Review</i> Editors' Choice</b> <p/>Responsibility--which once meant the moral duty to help and support others--has come to be equated with an obligation to be self-sufficient. This has guided recent reforms of the welfare state making key entitlements conditional on good behavior. Drawing on political theory and moral philosophy Yascha Mounk shows why this re-imagining of personal responsibility is pernicious--and suggests how it might be overcome. <p/>This important book prompts us to reconsider the role of luck and choice in debates about welfare and to rethink our mutual responsibilities as citizens.<br>--Michael J. Sandel author of <i>Justice</i> <p/>A smart and engaging book... Do we so value holding people accountable that we are willing to jeopardize our own welfare for a proper comeuppance?<br>--<i>New York Times Book Review</i> <p/>An important new book... [Mounk] mounts a compelling case that political rhetoric...has shifted over the last half century toward a markedly punitive vision of social welfare.<br>--<i>Los Angeles Review of Books</i> <p/>A terrific book. The insight at its heart--that the conception of responsibility now at work in much public rhetoric and policy is both punitive and ill-conceived--is very important and should be widely heeded.<br>--Jedediah Purdy author of <i>After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene</i></p>