Monday, March 18, 2013

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.     

2 comments:

  1. The discussion of moral luck was well defined. Also the person example that was used showed moral luck well because the end result was out of your control. The thing that I would work on would be the argument as to why moral luck is not an ethical issue. It is clear that you believe that it is not an ethical issue but more examples to back up your position would help your argument.

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  2. I like your example from swimming. It was a very good portrayal of luck, even if it wasn't "moral" luck. However, I think you give more support to your stance on whether or not it's a serious ethical issue.

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