but if i lie (which is always bad in my books) stating this cake taste good, or okay my word has been tarnished and you will now always question what i say in these moments but if i dont i look rude.
Only if you are not a convincing liar, forget that you lied and tell the truth later on, or tell a third person that you didn't like the cake and then that third person tells the truth to the cake-maker.
I agree that we are responsible for our feelings to some degree, but we are also responsible for our actions and in many cases are responsible for how our actions affect others. I do not exclude words from "actions" and I do not entirely exclude the emotional reactions of others to my words from "how my actions affect others".
If you punch someone in the face, and they are upset about it, you don't say that the physical pain the other person is experiencing is their problem and you are not responsible for it in any way -- as for why, the reasons I can think of are:
Virtually all people, in virtually all contexts, feel physical pain when punched in the face. It is an expected and direct consequence of being punched in the face;
It is also recognized that people do not choose to feel physical pain -- it is a natural biological reaction that's largely outside of our control;
And causing pain/damage is arguably the only reason to punch someone in the face, even when the situation is somewhat complex as it would be in self-defense and fighting sports. At the very least, punching someone is obviously an action directed at them, meant to affect them in a negative way.
Whereas:
Emotional responses are far less universal and far more difficult to predict;
In contrast to punching someone in the face, the purposes of verbal communication are many and varied;
And the harmfulness or non-harmfulness of words is contextual, individual, and variable....
However, that does not mean that emotional reactions cannot be predicted at all nor does it mean that words cannot be used to harm, or that words cannot be expected to cause harm even if that is not their intended purpose....
Also, most people cannot actually choose what to feel -- sure, emotional pain is influenced by thoughts and experiences, interpretations and values and perspectives, but that doesn't mean that people are actually in control of whether or not they feel hurt -- influence is not the same as control. Emotions are fundamentally a natural and automatic biological response just as physical pain is, even if they are far more complicated and can often be shifted or changed, to varying degrees, using cognitive means alone.
I don't see causing emotional pain as entirely different from causing physical pain.....so:
If I say something that I know beforehand will (or probably will) be hurtful to you and it was not necessary for me to say it (meaning I could have just not said it at all, with no harm to me or to you or to anyone else, or that I could have said it in a non-hurtful way) then I see responsibility for the emotional pain caused by my words the same way I would see responsibility for the physical pain you'd feel if I had punched you in the face -- I am responsible for your pain.
Change the situation so that I have no idea my words will hurt your feelings. I would be responsible to some extent, but in a different way because it would be an accident. To use the comparison with physical pain again, it would be similar to if you had just come up quietly behind me and I, not realizing you were standing behind me, suddenly turned around while gesticulating with my arm outstretched and accidentally smacked you in the face. I would feel bad, I would apologize....I would be responsible for the pain you felt but not in the same way as if I had knowingly and purposefully hit you.
Change the original situation again, this time I know that my words will hurt but it is necessary for me to say them because you or I or someone else will be harmed if I do not and I have prioritized avoiding the harm from not saying the words over avoiding the harm from saying the words. In this case I would say I am responsible for your hurt feelings only to the extent that I have made no effort to minimize the hurt.....so if my word choice hurts you more than a nicer word choice would have, then I am only responsible for the extra amount of hurt beyond what you would have felt had I used nicer words.
