Morality and Luck

Philosophy ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 59 (229) ◽  
pp. 323-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henning Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Thomas Nagel ◽  
Significant Aspect

Thomas Nagel recognizes that it is commonly believed that people can neither be held morally responsible nor morally assessed for what is beyond their control. Yet he is convinced that although such a belief may be intuitively plausible, upon reflection we find that we do make moral assessments of persons in a large number of cases in which such assessments depend on factors not under their control. Of such factors he says: ‘Wherea significant aspect of what someone does depends on factors beyond his control, yet we continue to treat him in that respect as an object of moral judgment, itcan be called moral luck’ (p. 26).

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.

Virtue Epistemology and Moral Luck

2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Silcox
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Epistemology ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Alternative Strategy ◽  
Virtue Theory ◽  
Epistemic Virtue ◽  
Thomas Nagel ◽  
General Attitude ◽  
Epistemic Obligation

AbstractThomas Nagel has proposed that the existence of moral luck mandates a general attitude of skepticism in ethics. One popular way of arguing against Nagel’s claim is to insist that the phenomenon of moral luck itself is an illusion , in the sense that situations in which it seems to occur may be plausibly re-described so as to show that agents need not be held responsible for the unlucky outcomes of their actions. Here I argue that this strategy for explaining away moral luck fails because it does not take account of the fact that agents in morally unlucky circumstances are uniformly subject to a very specific type of epistemic obligation. I then proceed to sketch out an alternative strategy for blocking the inference to skepticism, one that makes use of the distinctive explanatory resources provided by epistemic virtue theory.

scholarly journals La influencia de la teoría de las pasiones de Hume en el juicio moral de Adam Smith

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 268-276
Author(s):  
Maria A. Carrasco
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Different Parts

The analysis of the irregular moral sentiments that Smith describes in TMS II.iii evidences the enormous influence of David Hume’s theory of passions in the moral theory of his successor, as well as the critical differences between these Scottish philosophers’ moral proposals. Moreover, these atypical situations also allow us to grasp the different parts of Smithian moral judgment, and to exclude – despite Smith’s assertion – the influence of moral luck on these judgments.Keywords: Adam Smith, David Hume, moral judgment, passions, moral luck.

Moral luck

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Statman
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Moral Status ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Educational Background ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Thomas Nagel ◽  
Moral Accountability ◽  
Moral Theories ◽  
Stark Contrast

The term ‘moral luck’ was introduced by Bernard Williams in 1976 to convey the idea that moral status is, to a large extent, a matter of luck. For example, that Bob grows up to be vicious and Tom to be virtuous depends very much on their different family conditions and educational background. Following Williams, Thomas Nagel widened the scope of moral luck. The position taken by both stands in stark contrast to the widely-held view, influenced by Kant, that one is morally accountable only for what is under one’s control, so that moral accountability is not a matter of luck. This idea is so deeply entrenched in our modern concept of morality that rejecting it would call for a rethinking and reformulation of the most basic notions of morality. Some have argued that the paradox of moral luck provides a strong reason to abandon traditional moral theories, and lends support to virtue ethics.

scholarly journals The Role of Emotions and Circumstances in Moral Judgments

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 170-187
Author(s):  
T.O. Yudina
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
Moral Judgement ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Mixed Emotions ◽  
Degree Of Control ◽  
Emotional Resonance

Objective. To study the variety of the moral luck demonstration depending on the level of the agent’s degree of control, personal condemnation of the agent, emotional resonance and compassion to the agent, circumstances and the harm degree of the outcome. Background. Modern theoretic approaches explain the moral luck phenomenon as a coincidence or a mistake but do not explain the variety of its demonstration. Design. Within five situations there were varied the level of control, circumstances, personal characteristics and the harm degree. After each situation we offered the five categories of questions: emotions towards the agent, emotions towards the result, punishment, moral judgement, personal condemnation of the agent, emotional resonance and compassion to the agent. Testing the relations of the variables by means of contingency tables. Subjects. 54 subjects (male 28), age from 18 to 45. Methods. Author’s five moral vignettes with questionnaire containing five categories of questions after each of the situation. Results. Punishment depends on the level of control, circumstances and the outcome. Negative mixed emotions related to punishment without regard of the harm degree. The emotions, personal condemnation and moral judgment related to the agent’s level of control. Compassion can be demonstrated notwithstanding the punishments and condemnation. Conclusions. Punishment judgment is the mental system which flexibility is provided by the attitude to punish in the case of bad behavior, the variety and intensity of negative emotions towards the agent or the outcome, the agent’s level of control.

scholarly journals Moral Luck and the Question of Responsibility

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-49
Author(s):  
Gargi Goswami
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Luck ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Problem ◽  
Thomas Nagel ◽  
Standard Practice ◽  
Responsible Agent ◽  
Apparent Conflict ◽  
Proper Theory

The problem of moral luck is a genuine moral problem faced by all of us where the conflict arises on how and upon whom one should place the burden of moral responsibility when the situation is beyond one‟s control. On one hand, people commonly think that a person cannot be justly praised or blamed for his actions unless he controls them. On the other hand, ordinary moral judgments of persons routinely vary based on the actual consequences caused by the person, even when partly or wholly beyond his control. The problem lies in the apparent conflict between the idea that a morally responsible agent must control his actions and the standard practice of blaming people more simply for causing worse results even when the factors are beyond his control. My paper will focus on the various types of moral luck as explained by Thomas Nagel and analyze that the seemingly hopeless situations in the various cases of moral luck can be satisfactorily resolved by a proper theory of moral responsibility.

What sentimentalists should say about emotion

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Kurth
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Multilevel Structure

Abstract Recent work by emotion researchers indicates that emotions have a multilevel structure. Sophisticated sentimentalists should take note of this work – for it better enables them to defend a substantive role for emotion in moral cognition. Contra May's rationalist criticisms, emotions are not only able to carry morally relevant information, but can also substantially influence moral judgment and reasoning.

Commentaries and Rejoinder on

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 327-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Han Gong ◽  
Douglas L. Medin ◽  
Tal Eyal ◽  
Nira Liberman ◽  
Yaacov Trope ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Psychological Distance ◽  
Temporal Distance ◽  
Moral Cognition ◽  
Cultural Systems ◽  
Moral Condemnation ◽  
Construal Levels

In the hope to resolve the two sets of opposing results concerning the effects of psychological distance and construal levels on moral judgment, Žeželj and Jokić (2014) conducted a series of four direct replications, which yielded divergent patterns of results. In our commentary, we first revisit the consistent findings that lower-level construals induced by How/Why manipulation lead to harsher moral condemnation than higher-level construals. We then speculate on the puzzling patterns of results regarding the role of temporal distance in shaping moral judgment. And we conclude by discussing the complexity of morality and propose that it may be important to incorporate cultural systems into the study of moral cognition.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document