Moral Luck By Bernard Williams Cambridge University Press, 1981, xiii + 173 pp., £16.50

Philosophy ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 58 (226) ◽  
pp. 544-548 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. J. Bond
Keyword(s):  
Moral Luck ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Cambridge University

GOALS, LUCK, AND MORAL OBLIGATION

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 297-316
Author(s):  
R. G. Frey
Keyword(s):  
Moral Obligation ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Moral Experience ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Moral Obligations

AbstractIn Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, Bernard Williams is rather severe on what he thinks of as an ethics of obligation. He has in mind by this Kant and W. D. Ross. For many, obligation seems the very core of ethics and the moral realm, and lives more generally are seen through the prism of this notion. This, according to Williams, flattens out our lives and moral experience and fails to take into account things which are obviously important to our lives. Once we take these things into account, what do we do if they come into conflict with some of our moral obligations, as Williams, in his earlier writings on moral luck, thought to be the case. I want here to explore some of these ideas, in a way that I think harmonious with Williams's general bent though not one that I intend as in any way detailed exegesis of Williams's work.

Happiness and Luckiness

1998 ◽  
pp. 207-214
Author(s):  
Paul Schollmeier
Keyword(s):  
Moral Luck ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Thomas Nagel ◽  
Philosophical Literature ◽  
Moral Philosophers

Moral philosophers, beginning with Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel, have recently broached the topic of moral luck in the philosophical literature. They limit their discussion however to considerations of how luck affects our ability to carry out actions or how it affects the consequences of our actions. I wish to suggest that luck is also an important factor in determining our actions as ends in themselves. What actions we may choose to perform for their own sake in a given situation depends much more than we might care to think on causes beyond our control. Our happiness rests ultimately on our luckiness.

The Magic in the Pronoun "My"Moral Luck. Bernard Williams

Ethics ◽  
1983 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alasdair MacIntyre
Keyword(s):  
Moral Luck ◽  
Bernard Williams

Moral Luck: Philosophical Papers by Bernard Williams

1984 ◽  
Vol 81 (6) ◽  
pp. 333-336
Author(s):  
Harry G. Frankfurt ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Luck ◽  
Bernard Williams

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Gerald Lang
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Pairwise Comparison ◽  
Normative Ethics ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Lack Of Control ◽  
Normative Issues ◽  
Constitutive Luck ◽  
Specific Challenge

The Introduction identifies the 1976 symposium between Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel as the key moment in the development of the contemporary wide-ranging debate on moral luck. Despite Nagel’s proposal to proceed with an account of luck that can straddle the gap between ethics and epistemology, it is argued that the sort of luck relevant to moral and political philosophy need not be identical with the sort of luck pressed into service by epistemologists. The ‘Lack of Control Account’ of luck will serve adequately for normative issues, even if it leaves theoretical philosophers dissatisfied. Nagel’s familiar taxonomy of types of moral luck is outlined: resultant luck, circumstantial luck, constitutive luck, and causal luck. The treatment of moral luck in this book prescinds from any detailed engagement with issues of free will and responsibility, and also issues of blameworthiness and responsibility. Different views can be taken about these various issues, but the specific challenge of moral luck will still await resolution. That challenge is fundamentally distributive in character, and is typically focused on the apparatus of the pairwise comparison. The anti-luckist programme in normative ethics objects to different assignments of blameworthiness to agents whose acts turn out differently due to luck. The problem here lies with that prior investment in the pairwise comparison. That contention will be pursued across the early chapters of the book.

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