Moral Luck

Thomas Nagel introduces us to the role of chance in

our moral judgments.

Chance plays a crucial role in moral judgment. Moral luck is a way

of thinking about the relation between luck and moral
accountability that recognizes that no one really knows what
outcomes will result from their intentions. Specifically, “Moral
luck occurs when an agent can be correctly treated as an object of
moral judgment despite the fact that a significant aspect of what
she is assessed for depends on factors beyond her control.”

Instances of moral luck thus push back on what has come to be

called The Control Principle: “We are morally assessable only to
the extent that what we are assessed for depends on factors under
our control.” Because people are free to determine intentions, our
intentions can be revealing of our moral character. Nonetheless,
adverse outcomes might result from even the best intentions.

Thomas Nagel wrote the classic essay on moral luck and The

Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy gives a
fantastic summary of the four categories he identified: resultant
luck, circumstantial luck, constitutive luck, and causal luck. Each
is paraphrased below:
Resultant Luck is luck in the way things turn out. When
decisions are made under uncertainty, we judge the decision-
makers differently depending on the outcome. For example,
imagine that two otherwise conscientious people have forgotten to
have their brakes checked recently and experience brake failure,
but only one of whom finds a child in the path of his car. If we
offer different moral assessments based upon the
different outcome of their crashes, then we have a case of resultant
moral luck.

Circumstantial luck is luck in the circumstances in which one

finds oneself. A morally virtuous person who never faces
circumstances that reveal that virtue may not be recognized as
such. Similarly, a moral turpitude may never be revealed,
depending on the circumstances that offer alternatives to make
immoral choices.

Constitutive luck is luck in who one is, or in the traits and

dispositions that one has. Since our genes, care-givers, peers, and
other environmental influences all contribute to making us who
we are (and since we have no control over these) it seems that who
we are is at least largely a matter of luck. Since how we act is partly
a function of who we are, the existence of constitutive luck entails
that what actions we perform depends on luck, too.

Causal luck is luck in “how one is determined by antecedent

circumstances”. Nagel points out that the appearance of causal
moral luck is essentially the classic problem of free will. The
problem of free will to which Nagel refers arises because it seems
that our actions — and even the “stripped-down acts of the will” —
are consequences of what is not in our control. If this is so, then
neither our actions nor our willing are free. And since freedom is
often thought to be necessary for moral responsibility, we cannot
be morally responsible even for our willings. Sometimes the
problem is thought to arise only if determinism is true, but this is
not the case. Even if it turns out that determinism is false, but
events are still caused by prior events according to probabilistic
laws, the way that one is caused to act by antecedent
circumstances would seem to be equally outside of one’s control

Source:

Seager, Thomas, ‘Moral Luck”, Medium, (Jul 28, 2018), URL =

https://medium.com/the-polymath-project/moral-luck-fca19621a305