The forces of events happening
around us in which we have no ability to control powers us to make choices and
sacrifices. The event of being at a certain place and time where something good
or bad happens is not coincidental: things happen when they are supposed to, how they are supposed to. However, your reactions to those events are
your moral intentions. Your intentions and contributions to the events happening
around you is what make your actions good or bad. This is moral luck.
I was born to parents who both had addictions. This resulted
to uncontrollable suffering that my siblings and I endured while we were
growing up. We couldn’t help that our parents did not step up for us and take
care of responsibilities. We were forced to fend for ourselves. I’ve before tried throwing
their substances away, but that resulted in whippings, even though my
intentions were to get them to stop their abuse.
In the event of moral luck you will be forced to take a
stance. Whether your intentions are good
or bad depends on your reaction to those circumstances.
I do not think that the
idea of moral luck is an issue. There are always events that are out of our control. The plus is that we
have the ability to thereafter make choices based from those events. Our choices are transpired
from our intentions. Most human beings are rationale.
We choose to do what is pleasurable to us. My parents chose
to spend money on their addiction rather than basic necessities. That was their
intention. That was them satisfying their pleasures. My reaction to moral luck was
to have intentions to do better with myself as a result of what I had no
control over. I did what was pleasurable to me, which was to extract myself
from that situation.
The discussion of moral luck was described with a Kantian view. I believe that you were mixing up the Kantian view with moral luck a bit. Moral luck is out of your control and it does not matter about intentions. Intentions is a Kantian view. I believe that the personal example show moral luck and that it was out of your control. I would focus more on the argument of whether moral luck is a serious moral problem or not.
ReplyDeleteI think that moral luck should be focused on the outcomes of actions but should also look at the intentions of a person. In the first paragraph you say "The event of being at a certain place and time where something good or bad happens is not coincidental: things happen when they are supposed to, how they are supposed to." I would say that this is not connected to moral luck because moral luck is something that is more random and coincidental. In your example I think that the question you should ask is if someones intentions are good and they do bad things should they be judged for there intentions or their actions.
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