Moral Luck

Alexandra Spencer

3/16/13

Moral Luck

            Moral luck asks the question that are external influences or conditions that are potentially outside a person’s control can they be blamed or praise for a certain action. There are many levels I think to this argument that can people be really held responsible for their actions if someone or something alters the result. A real life example that happened to me was this one time in high school someone had stolen my homework that I had accidentally left in the library. He crossed off my name poorly (it was obvious that it was still mine) and made a copy of it and tried to hand it in as his. The teacher knew right away that he cheated and stole my homework and gave him no credit for the assignment but then told me that I was going to receive no credit either. Which is completely unfair and it was obvious that I had nothing to do with him cheating and taking the assignment. Was this morally right of my teacher to d this to me? I certainly did not think so. As it turns out he was going to give me credit for the assignment but he wanted me to get angry at the person who stole it, but I did not. This situation of the teacher trying to get me to punish the person who stole my homework was also morally wrong. Did I really deserve all that trouble?

            With my situation because of moral luck the teacher thought at first that I should be treated the same as the person that cheated even though I had nothing to do with it. I do not think that moral luck is a serious ethical problem because people should be punished or blamed for their actions as they actually happen. So I should not have been blamed for something that I did not do. I do not think that both people should be treated the same but treated responsibly for their actions not as if they had done something potentially wrong when they did not.