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THE PROBLEM OF MORAL LUCK
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THE PROBLEM OF MORAL LUCKThe problem of moral luck traps us between an intuition and a fact: 1) the intuition that luck must not make moral differences (e.g., that luck must not affect a person's moral worth, that luck must not affect what a person is morally responsible for). 2) the fact that luck does seem to make moral differences (e.g., we blame the unfortunate driver more than the fortunate driver). Responses to the problem have been of two broad sorts. Some claim that the intuition is mistaken, that there is nothing wrong with luck making a moral difference. Others claim that we have our facts wrong, that luck never does make a moral difference. The first sort of response has been the least popular. When it has been made, the approach has usually been to suggest that, if cases of moral luck are troubling, this is only because we have a mistaken view of morality. Brynmor Browne (1992), for instance, has argued that moral luck is only troubling because we mistakenly tend to think of moral assessment as bound up with punishment. He argues that, once we correct our thinking, cases of moral luck cease to be troubling. In an argument reminiscent of Williams, Margaret Urban Walker (1993) claims that cases of moral luck are only troubling if we adopt the mistaken view of agency she calls 'pure agency'. She argues that this view has repugnant implications and so should be rejected in favor a view of agency on which moral luck ceases to be troubling (namely 'impure agency'). Judith Andre (1993) claims that we find cases of moral luck troubling because some of our thinking about morality is influenced by Kant. She adds, however, that the core of our thinking about morality is Aristotelian and that Aristotelians need not be troubled by cases of moral luck. The claims of all these authors are controversial. The most popular response to the problem of moral luck has been to deny that cases of moral luck ever occur. This is usually done by suggesting that cases in which luck appears to make a moral difference are really cases in which luck makes an epistemic difference, that is, in which luck puts us in a better or worse position to assess a person's moral standing (without actually changing that standing). Consider the case of the fortunate and unfortunate drivers. On this line of argument, it is claimed that there is no moral difference between them, it is just that in the case of the unfortunate driver we have a clear indication of his deficient moral standing. The fortunate driver is lucky in the sense that his moral failings may escape detection, but not in actually having a moral standing any different from that of the unfortunate driver. Along these lines, we find passages like the following: "the luck involved relates not to our moral condition but only to our image: it relates not to what we are but to how people (ourselves included) will regard us." (Rescher, 1993, 154-5) "A culprit may thus be lucky or unlucky in how clear his deserts are." (Richards, 1993, 169) "If actual harm occurs, the agent and others considering his act will have a painful awareness of this harm." (Jensen, 1993, 136) "The actual harm serves only to make vivid how wicked the behaviour was because of the danger it created." (Bennett, 1995, 59-60) While appealing, the difficulty with this response to the problem of moral luck is that it tends to work better for some sorts of luck than for others. While it is plausible that resultant or circumstantial luck might make only epistemic differences, perhaps revealing or concealing a person's character, it is not at all clear that constitutive luck can be said to make only epistemic differences. If a person possesses a very dishonest character by luck, what feature of the person does luck reveals to us that (non-luckily) determines his moral status? One response to this worry has been to deny that the notion of constitutive luck is coherent. (See, in particular, Rescher, 1995, 155-158 and also Hurley, 1993, 197-198.) This claim turns upon a substantive claim about the nature of luck, a topic that has been surprisingly absent from the literature on moral luck. It is my own view that it is only by investigating the nature of luck that we will be able to reach any sort of a final conclusion regarding the problem of moral luck. The problem of moral luck is both real and deep.
http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/williams/ Accessed June 29, 2003. THE USES OF PHILOSOPHY. An interview with Bernard Williams. The Center Magazine. November/December 1983, pp. 40-49 Williams, Bernard. TRUTH AND TRUTHFULLNESS. Princeton University Press, 2002. Williams, Bernard. MAKING SENSE OF HUMANITY. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Williams, Bernard. SHAME AND NECESSITY. Cambridge University Press, 1995. Williams, Bernard. ETHICS AND THE LIMITS OF PHILOSOPHY. Harvard University Press, 1985. Williams, Bernard. MORAL LUCK. Cambridge University Press, 1981. Williams, Bernard. DESCARTES: THE PROJECT OF PURE ENQUIRY. Harvester Press, 1978. Williams, Bernard. A CRITIQUE OF UTILITARIANISM, IN UTILITARIANISM: FOR AND AGAINST. with J.J.C. Smart, Cambridge University Press, 1973. Williams, Bernard. PROBLEMS OF THE SELF. Cambridge University Press, 1973. Williams, Bernard. MORALITY: AN INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS. Harper and Row, 1972. Williams, Bernard. PHILOSOPHY AS A HUMANISTIC DISCIPLINE. Philosophy 75 (294), Oct. 00, 477-496. Williams, Bernard. TOLERATING THE INTOLERABLE. In THE POLITICS OF TOLERATION, ed. Susan Mendes, Edinburgh University Press, 1999. Williams, Bernard. MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND POLITICAL FREEDOM. 56 Cambridge Law Journal, 1997. Williams, Bernard. HISTORY, MORALITY, AND THE TEST OF REFLECTION. In THE SOURCES OF NORMATIVITY, ed. Onora O'Neill, Cambridge University Press, 1996. Williams, Bernard. THE POLITICS OF TRUST. THE GEOGRAPHY OF IDENTITY, ed. Patricia Yeager, University of Michigan Press, 1996. Williams, Bernard. THE WOMEN OF TRACHIS: FICTIONS, PESSIMISM, ETHICS. THE GREEKS AND US, ed. R. B. Louden and P. Schollmeier, Chicago University Press, 1996. Williams, Bernard. ACTING AS THE VIRTUOUS PERSON ACTS. in ARISTOTLE AND MORAL REALISM, ed. Robert Heinaman, Westview Press, 1995. Williams, Bernard. IDENTITY AND IDENTITIES. In IDENTITY: ESSAYS BASED ON HERBERT SPENCER LECTURES. Given in the University of Oxford, ed. Harris, Henry, Oxford University Press, 1995. Williams, Bernard. CRATYLUS' THEORY OF NAMES AND ITS REFUTATION. In LANGUAGE, ed. Stephen Everson, Cambridge University Press, 1994. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
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