Moral Luck

Aaron Edwards

What is moral luck?

Moral luck is whether an individual should be praised or blamed due to external conditions outside of their control. An example of moral luck in my own life happen this semester at Southern Connecticut State University at the Field House. I was playing a game a basketball and my attention was for the inbound person to pass me the ball and I was suppose to throw a full court pass to my friend on the other end. So the ball gets passed in to me and I heave the basketball down the court and instead of ball going to my friend it goes straight in the net for a full court shot. My intention was to pass the ball but my action got me praised by my teammates for such an amazing shot.

But do I really think that moral luck is a serious ethical problem no because in life things like this can happen everyday. For example if someone has a gun to your head you still have 2 choices either to get shot or try to defend yourself. The relationship to what I’m saying is that if things are going bad for you a change can happen if you want to better yourself. I don’t believe in luck at all I think things happen for a reason so you have to live with it and move on. 

Moral Luck

  The concept of moral luck is when a person is treated with praise or blamed for an action they did not do or aren't able to control. External influences are not usually thought to excuse what is done from moral judgment, it being positive or negative. One time where moral luck played a part somewhere in my life was when I had my very first boyfriend.  One day we got into an argument and by accident I called him my old crush’s name and even though it wasn't intentional I had to deal with the consequences. I didn't mean to, but it happened and it was an action I wasn't able to control.

            I don’t think that moral luck is an ethical issue because I believe in karma good and bad. Life isn't always fair, its either you hold a grudge on it or move on from it. Sometimes our actions aren't explainable  We don’t mean what we did to harm or hurt others, but that’s just the way life is. Bad luck or good luck, we have to deal with it in one shape or another.

Moral Luck

            The idea of moral luck questions if external conditions outside of ones control, should be used to increase or decrease blame or praise of the individual.  An example of this in my life would be when I was 16 and my friend and I attended a driving education course.  We went to the same classes together and got the same exact education.  We also had the same problem where neither of us knew how to parallel park.  When the time came for the test, we ended up getting different proctors.  I ended up not having to parallel park for the test; my friend on the other hand was not so lucky.  His proctor made him parallel park and because of it he ended up failing.  This is an example of moral luck because we both had the same exact knowledge and training going into it, and it came down to bad luck that he ended up failing.

            While I do believe that moral luck does exist in our lives, I do not believe that it is a serious ethical problem.  Luck is something that is out of our control and can be random; therefore one should not be blamed or praised for this.  We cannot stop these things from happening.  It would not be ethical to blame or praise someone for an action that they cannot control.   In the example I showed I it could have been prevented with no need for luck, had we just learned to Parallel Park in the first place.

Moral Luck

The best way to describe moral luck would be to say that it is an enigma. It's a concept which states that the kind of people we are, in our dispositions, talents, and temperaments, along with the situations we face are entirely out of our control. Therefore, because we can not control the factors that play vital roles in shaping our personalities and moral ideologies, we should not be commended for the good that we do nor deplored for the immoral things we do. Should we then, instead of giving praise or blame to each other in response to certain actions, simply consider the consequences of an action either fortunate or unfortunate?

Moral luck can be applied to any situation. For example, I was born into a large African family that relied heavily on subsistence farming. But my parents chose to go to school, obtain visa's, and immigrate to the U.S. in order to continue their schooling and give me and my siblings an opportunity to live more comfortably than we would have if we stayed abroad. There are an infinite number of factors, which I had no control over, that have shaped me into the person that I am today. To name a few, the family that I was born into, relocating from Nairobi Kenya to America, and all of the people I've met and the choices I've had to make (which yielded results both beneficial and detrimental to my character) are examples of circumstances that I had no control over. But the pressing question is not whether or not I can control these circumstances, because clearly I can not; but rather, since I have no control over these circumstances of which I am the direct product of, can I be held responsible for my actions if my actions and the results of my actions are the product of antecedent and posterior circumstances? Nagel claims, “A person can be morally responsible only for what he does; but what he does results from a great deal that he does not do; therefore he is not morally responsible for what he is and is not responsible for” (Nagel 498). He goes on to say, “Everything seems to result from the combined influence of factors, antecedent and posterior to action, that are not within the agent's control. Since he cannot be responsible for them, he cannot be responsible for their results” (Nagel 498). Nagel agrees that moral luck is an extremely paradoxical issue that is deeply embedded in the concept of responsibility, but he seems to favor the idea that we should hold no responsibility for our actions because we are not responsible for our own existence, our nature, or the choices we have to make (Nagel 498).

Moral Luck is a serious ethical problem because it not only questions the control we have over our own actions, but also the responsibility we have for the results of such actions. Although it may seem like a radical idea, there is little, if any, evidence that can refute such a claim. I'm inclined to agree with Nagel in his very bold assertion that since we are the product of antecedent and posterior circumstances we are not responsible for our actions (whether or not this should affect the culpability of criminals or the estimability of good citizens will be addressed later). I agree only because I simply can not find any grounds to disprove his allegation. One can easily argue and say, “we always have a choice, and our choices make us who we are rather than the antecedent circumstances we are dealt”. But Nagel presents another claim that trumps such an argument. He uses an example involving citizens of Nazi Germany saying, “Ordinary citizens of Nazi Germany had an opportunity to behave heroically by opposing the regime. They also had an opportunity to behave badly, and most of them are culpable for having failed this test” (Nagel 497). This example can be used to defend the argument that choices shape our character rather than circumstances in the sense that the citizens of Nazi Germany were faced with a moral choice and a choice was made (regardless of whether or not the choice was moral or immoral). He then asks, “If one cannot be responsible for consequences of one's acts due to factors beyond one's control, or for antecedents of one's acts that are properties of temperament not subject to one's will, or for the circumstances that pose one's moral choices, then how can one be responsible even for the stripped-down acts of the will itself, if they are the product of antecedent circumstances outside of the will's control?” (Nagel 498). In other words, one's will is the product of circumstances outside of our control, therefore we are not responsible for the actions of the will; and because the choices we make come from the will, it would seem that even the choices we make are produced from circumstances beyond our control. It's an extremely radical concept. However, even though I'm inclined to agree with it, I do not believe that anything should be changed in the sense that criminals be made less culpable for their crimes and heroes are less esteemed for their heroics. If we accepted Nagel's proposal and simply labeled certain actions as yielding unfortunate or fortunate results instead of blaming or praising the person who committed the act, then bad people would be more inclined to do bad things, and many others (who would otherwise have been good people), will be posed with a moral choice to either join the many people doing bad or be a victim of majority tyranny. Viewing actions externally and regarding our actions and our characters merely as fortunate or unfortunate episodes, would have a catastrophic outcome. To conclude, if the dilemma lies within having to choose between not holding people responsible for their actions (on grounds that they are the product of circumstances beyond their control) and holding people responsible for their actions and, indirectly, for things outside of their control, I would have to concur with the latter because it shields us from any greater moral chaos. Whether or not such an agreement is immoral is a topic for another day.

Moral Luck

Moral Luck can be defined as a person receiving honor or blame for an action that was out of the person’s control. We may not realize it but we have all encountered times where the outcome of a certain circumstance was affected due to something we could not control. My freshman year of high school when I was on the swim team I had to compete in a race to see who would advance from state trials to finals. I was up against a kid who just around the same time as I was for the event so I knew that I had to give it my all to win. We raced and I won. I was praised by my teammates for winning the race but come to find out that reason I won was because the other kid’s goggles filled out with water and was unable to race as fast as usual.

I do not believe that moral luck is huge ethical issue because we can not control external forces around us. We only have control over the thing we do and anybody or anything else. Therefore we should not feel guilty when a victory is brought about because of something we can not handle. Our intentions are still the same, we still want to win the race or do a good deed but it just happens in a different way than we expect it to.     

Moral Luck

  Moral luck is something that is hard to define. Is moral luck fantasy or a construction of reality? Moral luck is centered around ones culture and the society around them. I believe that the circumstances you are in CAN be changed even if the end result is social isolation. I understand sometimes you are in such dire conditions where what seems right because it was explained to be right but I'd like to think that a human being would feel inhumane about doing certain wrong acts like harming another human being for reasons that aren't logical. During the holocaust Nazi soldiers did what they thought were right and some who didn't think what they were doing was right would be shot or even worse. Then there were soldiers who fell in love with Jewish woman and had to hide their acts so they could fit into their society. This shows that even though many Nazi soldiers hurt and killed innocent people their were people who saw through the crap at the time and knew that Hitler was spewing hatred. I think its all about making the most of what situation you are in, creating your own moral luck and doing something where you know chances are high for success.

 I think that every decision should be made logically and well thought out. Bad luck is more attainable then good luck in our world. Wrong place at the wrong time scenarios do exist and do happen day to day. Bad luck is something that can't be planned. One summer my grandmas was in the back yard working on her flowers. She pulled on a certain plant trying to lift it's roots up. As she proceeded she pulled up a bees nest and bees surrounding her stinging her well over 20 times! Luckily she was taken to the hospital on time and ended up healing fine. Moral of the story was that she placed herself into a scenario that she had no idea what the outcome would be. If she had known there was a bee next her destination would have been completely different.

Moral Luck

    Moral luck occurrs when a person is treated with blame or praise for an action, the outcome of which depended upon factors that were unable to be controled; yet made a moral difference in judgement. An example of moral luck in my life could be recieving praise for playing soccer, when many members of my family display athleticism and it is probably a product of genetics.
    I don't believe it to be a ethical issue or that it should influence our moral judgement of others or ourselves. The fact that some uncontrollable factor of luck or fate made the outcome of an action more or less possible dosn't affect the good or bad intentions behind that action. External factors influencing an action are meaningless when one is assessed by the good or bad will behind it. If someone were to render aid to a choking person by administering the heimlich maneuver and in saving that person's life broke some ribs; we shouldn't morally assess that person for breaking that persons ribs but for saving life. If someone is born with a talent, it's still in their power to utilize and nurture it out of self-perfection or abandon it, those who are good at what they do are worthy of praise.

Moral Luck

In Class we learned that Kant believed that good or bad luck should influence neither our moral judgment of a person and their actions. Moral luck is whether an individual should be acknowledged or punished due to external conditions outside of their control. We have no control over situations at all when moral luck comes into play. The concept of moral luck is that should one be accountable for their actions due to things beyond ones control or surroundings. If an action is right or wrong can the failed action or successful action be considered good or bad. 

 I really can't really illustrate it with an example from your own life, but I'll use examples from class where Rex was talking about is it right and justifiable that luck makes a difference in our moral and legal judgments? The difference between murder and attempted murder can merely be the luck of the situation.Like the skill of the murderer and other factors that seem to be morally irrelevant, but  the two actions are viewed quite differently by some people. Ethically and legally, as evidenced by the court system punishing murder and attempted murder to a vastly different extent. Another example of moral and legal  disparity between accidentally killing a pedestrian while driving drunk, and narrowly avoiding a pedestrian while driving drunk. In either example, what justifies us in assessing and punishing those who are unlucky far more severely than those who are lucky. The problem of moral luck is we seem to be committed to the general principle that we are morally assessable only to the extent that what we are assessed for depends on factors under our control.

I think moral luck is a serious ethical problem because some people are born into it, live within, and experience circumstances that occur and seem to change their morality when all other factors remain the same.For example, a poor man is born into a poor family and  has no other way to feed himself or his family so he steals food from  another person. Who was born into a very wealthy family, it does very little to them, because they have enough food and does not need to steal to get it.So should the poor person be more moral and blame the rich person for being born wealthy and he wasn't ? It just goes to show that it is not his fault that he was born into such poor circumstances, but a matter of luck.

Short Story Moral Luck

Moral luck is whether an individual should be praised or blamed due to external conditions outside of their’s control. We have no control over the situation at all when moral luck is involved. A personal example of moral luck from my experience is from high school. I turned 17 and just got my license a month later. I was excited to legally drive without my parents needing to be in the car. I called a friend and she drove to my location to meet up. We both set out to go somewhere, but took separate cars. I was driving 65 in a 45 and my friend was trying to catch up to me. I notice a deer in the woods so I quickly switched lanes, but unfortunately my friend didn't see the deer and she ended up smacking him head on. I believe that to be completely moral luck because there was nothing stopping that deer from appearing from the woods a few seconds earlier, which would have made me smack him. It was unfortunate for my friend.

 

 

I don’t believe moral luck to be a serious ethical problem because we are not in full control of what the world has to offer. Anything can change in a split second, and who’s to say a person is supposed take blame or praise for something they didn't know was going to happen. If someone was to know every outcome to a situation, where does the moral luck factor come in? In a different perspective, say someone robbed a bank. The gun goes off accidentally and misses the teller by inches. He runs, but eventually is caught and hit with attempted murder along with other charges. Who’s to say he was trying to kill the teller rather than intimidate her with the gun itself? He could be praised that he did not kill her and would be serving less time rather than being punished more severely because the bullet hit her straight on. Morally, it is still wrong to do that but it is based on moral luck that he did not kill her.

Why the blame?

              What is moral luck?  Moral luck describes circumstances where someone is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences even though it is clear that said someone did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. 

              I tried think about an interesting time moral luck has affected me but eventually failed, so i decided to use the example of a fire fighter. A firefighter has absolutely no control over when or where a fire starts or how many people are involved. Their job is too come and stop the fire and make sure people are safe. Moral luck can affect them when they fail to save someone from the fire, they are blamed for the failure and have to deal the the emotional trauma from that. Even thought they had nothing to do with the fire. Whether or not they tried their best doesn't matter.

             Moral luck describes circumstances where someone is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences even though it is clear that said someone did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. Moral luck is everywhere and will affect everyone at some point during their lives, it's just a matter of when and where.

-Eric

             
  
              

Moral Luck

     Moral luck questions whether people should be praised or blamed when their actions are affected by external conditions outside of their control. An example from my own life goes back to when I was playing soccer in High School. During one of my games it was a very windy day. I tried to cross the ball in the air towards some of my teammates who were in front of the goal. Initially the ball was going towards where I had planned for it to go. However, the wind was so strong that the ball curved sharply towards the goal and landed in the back of the net. My action was impacted by conditions that I couldn't control. Even though my intent was to pass the ball, I was being praised by my teammates for scoring a goal.

I don't believe that moral luck is a serious ethical problem because it is a natural part of our lives that we cannot control. Moral luck relates to the quote "play the cards your dealt". No matter how bad a situation your in, you always have the choice to make the best of it. It's kind of like the glass half full or half empty viewpoint. Even though I believe luck plays a big part in our lives it is difficult to quantify it. Also if you believe in karma then over time the good luck and back luck should balance itself. While life may not always be fair, I believe we all have the opportunity to make the best of it.

Is moral luck an ethical issue?

Moral luck questions if external conditions outside a person’s control can increase or decrease blame or praise.

EXAMPLE:

I was driving on the highway on the way home from the beach.  The speed limit was 65, I was going about 70 mph.  Suddenly there was a splatter on my windshield and a swarm of bees came flying through my sun roof.  My instant panic caused me to move left off the road and when I looked up I was about 10 yards from a head on collision with the beginning of a median.   I immediately jerked the wheel to the right and lost control of the car.  After a 360 degree spin in the middle of the highway I ended up with my back end lifted up on the median.  This accident was unlucky, and ultimately out of my control.  However, I could have been more unlucky.  Consider if this collision had not happened right before the beginning of a median strip.  I could have gone completely left onto the other side of the road and collided with a motorcycle, killing the driver.  My intentions would not have been to collide with and kill a motorcycle rider, still my reaction to the bees was voluntary.  In my original case, where no one was killed I was not blamed for my reaction, or for the accident at all.  It was a freak accident.  Yet, in my fictional case I would be forced to assume culpability for my voluntary response to the bees that caused me to kill another person; perhaps even receiving legal penalization.  But can I be blamed justly?  Is it just that I retain the title “killer”?  The external circumstance of a swarm of bees being in the middle of the highway seems to be overlooked by the consequence of other circumstances such as my reaction, and the detail of my sunroof being open.  Looking deeper into my “voluntary” actions, I did choose to move the wheel the way I did, but these choices were not a result of calculated decisions. They were spontaneous and in wake of a frantic response with good intentions. 

                I think that moral luck is an ethical issue because one cannot be held completely responsible for the uncontrolled, and unpredictable.  I don’t think it would be fair to consider my reaction to the bees immoral, considering that I had handled the accident to my best ability and would never have the intention of ending another life.  To be praised for my bravery in the real case, but be blamed and scrutinized in my alternative case is unethical because it is the same person with the same intentions and moral values.  One cannot be more moral than the other simply because of outcome. 

Is moral luck unethical

                Moral luck is the idea that people receive praise or punishment for outcomes of actions in which the person didn’t have full control. People should not be punished or praised for things they do, because luck plays such a major role in most actions. Every action has multiple possible outcomes because luck can come into play and alter the results. For example I got into a car accident last year where I rear ended someone. The other woman’s car wasn’t damaged at all but my hood was messed up. This incident can obviously be viewed as moral bad luck, because I got in trouble for something that wasn’t in my control. I couldn’t control the road conditions or the mind of the woman that stopped short to allow other cars to pass in front of her. However I was still held responsible for the negative outcome of the accident. This could be seen as moral good luck because she was happy her car wasn’t damaged and left. Obviously the situation could have been better and it could have been worse. I do believe in the idea of moral luck, and that people get praise or punishment for things that aren’t in their control. If you think about it none of us can predict the future. Everything has the ability to change course at a second. Even the simplest thing like turning a light on can be altered with a power outage or a blown bulb.

 Moral luck is not a serious ethical problem, but I do believe it is slightly unethical.  The unpredictability of the world is so common in our lives that it is often overlooked. It can be hard to measure how much luck a person gains within situations, therefore people overlook the luck aspect of praise and punishment because it’s too difficult to replicate. If you think about it none of us can predict the future. Everything has the ability to change course at a second. Even the simplest thing like turning a light on can be altered with a power outage or a blown bulb. So it’s a split decision because it’s not fair to praise those that didn’t earn it but it’s also not fair to punish those that hit bad luck. Therefore the topic of moral luck cant fairly be determined as ethical or unethical, just somewhere in between. Its ethical when the person deserves the praise or punishment and its unethical when they don’t deserve the praise or punishment.

 

 

Moral Luck

Moral luck is essentially when someone is either blamed or praised for an action or it’s consequences, even though that person did not have full control over the action or it’s consequences. An example of moral luck that I have encountered in my life happened fairly recently. I live in an apartment with a few roommates and each month we take turns paying the rent, so we don’t have to worry about splitting it every month. I paid in December; another girl paid in January, and in February, the girl who was supposed to pay the rent forgot it was her month to pay. So because one roommate forgot to pay, all four of us got in trouble with our landlord and we all had to split a ridiculous late fee. 

 While moral luck plays a huge part in our lives, I do not think it should be considered an ethical problem. It just has to do with the decisions we make, whether good or bad, and the fallout that comes along with that decision. In my case, if my roommates and I had used better judgment in finding a fourth girl to live with, we would not be out $115 each. This situation had to do with our actions at the time, and I think it could have easily been prevented if we had just taken the time to meet other potential roommates. However, we did not take that time to meet other people, and therefore, the four of us had to share the blame even though it was one person’s fault we were in that bad situation. 

Moral Luck

            Moral Luck is the concept of questioning if external conditions outside one’s control increase or decrease blame or praise. In my family on my father’s side is a history of mental illness. Most of my father’s brothers and sisters have this condition. When I was a teenager, I was also diagnosed with a mental illness. The question could be asked, can you blame me if I do not finish college because I come from a background of mental illness that makes it hard for some to finish school. You could say it was just the bad hand in life I was dealt with.

            I do not see moral luck as an ethical problem or much of a problem at all. People should be praised for doing something good no matter if they were given the opportunities to do it. People who are born with a certain talent still have to develop that talent or they will be very average at it. The truth is that people will always get praise for doing something good even if all the cards a set up right for them. The truth is also that people will receive blame for things when maybe they were just born into a bad situation and did not have any control over it. So both will happen and have always happened whether we see it as a problem or not. I personally feel it is best to focus on the good and if some does well no matter what the circumstance is he should receive praise. I feel any type of blame can be subjective

Moral Luck

The concept of moral luck states or asks if one should be accountable for their actions due to things beyond ones control. If the attempt of an action is for the right reasons or not, can the fail or success be given credit to that person or is it due to “lucky” or ”un-lucky” circumstances? For example, one day in high school I decided to skip class. I told a couple friends what I was doing and they decided to do it too. We were all spending time together when one of my friends got a call from her mother asking where she was. The school had somehow found out she was skipping. As a result my friend got in-school suspension for a day. Now, that could have been me but for reasons and circumstances not under my control I was not caught.  I was very lucky.

            I think moral luck is not an ethical problem. Although sometimes it can be unfair it is just out of our control. Society has also come to terms with it and most people know what the rules are so there really shouldn’t be confusion by the consequences. If two different people decide to drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol they are knowingly taking a risk. They know it is possible they could hurt someone (or they think that would never happen to them), but either way they both know the risks and consequences involved. One driver gets pulled over for blowing a couple stop signs and gets charged with a DUI. That driver probably gets their license revoked and has to go to classes and such. The other driver was not as lucky and ends up killing someone. That person gets charged and sent to prison for their crime. The second driver although making the conscious decision to drive under the influence, had the unfortunate luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been the other driver, but they were “lucky” and no one got hurt. You cant blame the first driver for something he or she didn’t do not matter of how much the possibility of an outcome would be. The second driver committed actions unintended but mostly out of their control. Even though it could have happened to the first driver it would be un just to blame them for something they didn’t do.