Responsibility is being accountable for one’s personal conduct and obligations. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that the responsibility for each person’s social, emotional, spiritual, physical, and economic well-being rests first upon self, second upon the family, and third upon the Church. In addition to the responsibility to become self-reliant and to care for self and family, each member has the responsibility to care for the poor and needy.

"No member should desire or seek to voluntarily shift the responsibility for his own maintenance to another. Rather, each member, through work, should seek to find great satisfaction in personal achievement; and thus, he will be entitled to the fruits of his labors—both temporal and spiritual. Furthermore, self-reliance, as we understand it, implies at least one additional thought—personal accountability. Abinadi tells us that in spiritual matters, we shall all be 'brought to stand before the bar of God, to be judged of him according to [our] works whether they be good or whether they be evil' (Mosiah 6:10.)" (Marion G. Romney, "Principles of Temporal Salvation," Ensign, Apr. 1981, 4).