THE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY OF EVERYONE: ACTIONS FOR PUPILS, PROFESSORS, PROFESSIONALS AND POLITICIANS BRYAN HORRIGAN* This article is a revised version of the annual Newman Public Lecture, given by the author in 2011 at Mannix College in Melbourne. Mannix College is the only residential student college af filiated with Monash University. The Newman Public Lecture is named in honour of Cardinal John Henry Newman and commenced at Mannix College in 1981. Newman’s thoughts on university education in The Idea of a University 1 provide a background context for this article’s exploration of the connections between social responsibility, contemporary university environments and legal and other professional careers. I INTRODUCTION As a resident and law tutor of Mannix College, I am honoured by the College’s gracious invitation to present the 2011 Newman Public Lecture. The welcome opportunity to do so comes in the twentieth anniversary year of the death of my father, Kevin, and it is dedicated to him and my mother, Carlie, who is here tonight. The keen Latin scholars among you might see a correlation between the first part of the title for this Newman Public Lecture — ‘The Social Responsibility of Everyone’ — and Mannix College’s motto (adopted from Archbishop Mannix) — Omnia Omnibus (ie All Things to All People). 2 The starting point for this Newman Public Lecture is that we all have a fundamental socio-ethical responsibility in our personal, professional and public lives, as individuals and as members of the various communities in which we live and work. In what follows, I shall argue that this responsibility has a multiplicity of old and new forms. These forms are affected by the rapidly-changing and still-evolving conditions of 21 st century society. Re-awakening the unity of value on multiple societal levels — between our personal and societal interests, private and public goods, and individual and institutional lives — is needed now more than ever before. What we value and do as a society affects what we value and do as individual members of society in our various capacities. All of this I shall argue 1 John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (Clarendon Press, 1976). 2 I am grateful to Mannix College Principal Damien McCartin and Mannix College senior tutor and librarian Simon Caterson for this observation. * BA, LLB (Hons) (UQ), DPhil (Oxon); Louis Waller Chair of Law, Associate Dean (Research), Foundation Convenor of the Commercial Law Group in the Faculty of Law (Monash University); resident law tutor at Mannix College.