Moral Luck

Agent-regret seems to give rise to a philosophical puzzle. If we grant that we are not morally responsible for consequences outside of our control (the 'Standard View'), then agent-regret—which involves self-reproach and a desire to make amends for consequences outside one's control—appears rationally indefensible. But despite its apparent indefensibility, agent-regret still seems like a reasonable response to bad moral luck. I argue here that the puzzle can be resolved if we appreciate the role that agent-regret plays in a larger social practice that helps us deal with bad moral luck. That agent-regret is a component in a social practice limits the questions that we can reasonably ask about it. While we can ask whether an experience of agent-regret is rational given the norms of this practice, we cannot ask the question that motivates the puzzle of agent-regret, viz. whether agent-regret is rationally defensible according to the Standard View.

Many mining and development experts consider artisanal diamond mining to be a form of gambling. In Sierra Leone’s mining areas, this comparison also recurs occasionally in miners’ discourses. However, the idea that mining is like gambling deserves critical scrutiny as it allows only a limited, stereotypical representation of this work. This article considers mining as a complex combination of material production and imaginaries oriented by a specific ethic. Central to the understanding of this ethic is a repertoire of religious metaphors that inform miners’ working and ritual practices.
By drawing upon my ethnographic experience in Sierra Leone (2007–2011), I examine the vocabulary of contingency which the miners use to make sense of their successes and failures and guide their daily decision-making. Moreover, I show how this vocabulary mirrors the daily efforts  of miners in (re)producing the social reality in and around diamond mines. What I mean to  highlight is the ways in which diamond miners challenge dominant discourses depicting them as immoral, antisocial agents.

Resumen: En la primera parte del artículo, se reconstruye detalladamente el Argumento Global contra la suerte moral en todos sus tipos, distinguiendo dos estrategias principales (Moderada y Radical). A continuación, se defiende que ninguna de ellas es sostenible, pues si la primera resulta insuficiente, la segunda es impráctica y finalmente incoherente. Fundamentalmente, se intenta mostrar que un argumento definitivo contra la suerte moral en todos sus tipos dependerá necesariamente de la noción imposible de merecimiento incondicionado, o merecimiento verdadero (esencial), en el sentido especialmente fuerte de función estricta del (o estrictamente proporcional al) control del agente.

Is there a difference in moral blameworthiness between a murderer and an attempted murderer? Should there be a legal difference between them? These questions are particular instances of the question of moral luck and legal luck (respectively). In this paper, I survey and explain the main argumentative moves within the general philosophical discussion of moral luck. I then discuss legal luck, and the different ways in which this discussion may be related to that of moral luck.

Both the genetic endowment we have been equipped with, and the environment we had to be born and raised in, were not-and never are-for us to choose; both are pure luck, a random ticket in this enormously inventive cosmic lottery of existence. If it is luck that has makes us the persons we are, and since our decisions and choices depend largely on the kind of persons we are, it seems that everything we do or fail to do may only be attributed to luck. This paper focuses on criminal behavior, with special emphasis on Tarde's and Lombroso's views, to discuss free will and agency, and their interplay with moral luck, that is, the fixed boundaries set by our nature and the circumstances that surround us.

Questo lavoro intende analizzare i concetti di sorte e buona sorte per comprendere meglio il loro peso nel percorso per raggiungere la felicità più perfetta e durevole secondo Aristotele. La sorte assume indubbiamente un grande peso nella vita dell’uomo, e la virtù e la saggezza sono insufficienti a garantire il mantenimento della condizione di felicità senza un aiuto di quest’ultima. La felicità è però considerata da Aristotele come una attività, non come uno stato. In quanto attività può essere esercitata costantemente e può fornire un ottimo scudo contro la cattiva sorte e generalmente contro l’imprevedibilità della sorte. Inoltre, la felicità può essere raggiunta e acquisita solo esercitando le proprie virtù etiche. Più queste sono esercitate, più possono resistere anche ai più duri capovolgimenti della sorte. Certo fino a un limite: come nei casi di Priamo o Edipo, certe volte la cattiva sorte è semplicemente troppa anche per l’uomo più buono o più saggio o più felice del mondo.

What part does luck play in the success of individuals, enterprises and countries? Think of examples. From politics to careers to finding the love of your life, there has never been more advice available, yet at the end of the game, some people seem to have been lucky and others not. Why is this so? Can you really do much about it?

Is the idea of the voluntary important? Those who think so tend to regard it as an idea that can be metaphysically deepened through a theory about voluntary action, while those who think it a superficial idea that cannot coherently be deepened tend to neglect it as unimportant. Parting company with both camps, I argue that the idea of the voluntary is at once important and superficial-it is an essentially superficial notion that performs important functions, but can only perform them if we refrain from deepening it. After elaborating the contrast between superficial and deepened ideas of the voluntary, I identify the important functions that the superficial idea performs in relation to demands for fairness and freedom. I then suggest that theories trying to deepen the idea exemplify a problematic moralization of psychology-they warp psychological ideas to ensure that moral demands can be met. I offer a three-tier model of the problematic dynamics this creates, and show why the pressure to deepen the idea should be resisted. On this basis, I take stock of what an idea of the voluntary worth having should look like, and what residual tensions with moral ideas this leaves us with.

Bernard Williams thought that philosophy should address real human concerns felt beyond academic philosophy. But what wider concerns are addressed by Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy, a book he introduces as being ‘principally about how things are in moral philosophy’? In this article, we argue that Williams responded to the concerns of his day indirectly, refraining from explicitly claiming wider cultural relevance, but hinting at it in the pair of epigraphs that opens the main text. This was Williams’s solution to what he perceived as the stylistic problem of how to pursue philosophy as cultural critique. Taking the epigraphs as interpretative keys to the wider resonances of the book, we show how they reveal Williams’s philosophical concerns—with the primacy of character over method, the obligation to follow orders, and the possibility of combining truth, truthfulness, and a meaningful life in a disillusioned world—to be recognisably rooted in the cultural concerns of post-war Britain. In the light of its epigraphs, the book emerges as the critique of a philosophical tradition’s inadequacies to the special difficulties of its cultural moment.

This book tells part of the story of my life in a succession of anecdotes, or ‘Danecdotes,’ as a friend called them. It generally focuses on the unusual and thereby offers material for reflection. I often include some more or less philosophical reflections within the anecdotes; and such reflections often raise further questions too. The book may be considered as a contribution to ‘the philosophy of everyday life.’ The anecdotes are autobiographical and are presented in approximately chronological order. However, the book is not an autobiography. Large segments of my life have been excluded, particularly those concerning my sex life and intimate relationships. So, although the book is highly personal, it is not so personal as to be uncomfortable, either for me, or for my sexual partners, or for my intimate friends, or for my family, or for the educated reader. The topics covered include growing up in the old Notting Hill slums (long since demolished), attendance (and non-attendance) at a comprehensive school in Shepherd's Bush, cohabitation, working in a rough pub in Notting Hill, my life as an aggressive drunk, beer festivals, my on-off academic career, work as a management consultant, workplace bullying, my career as a management accountant, excelling under pressure, fall into depression, anxiety and bruxism, attempts to regain sanity, and philosophical reflections on life, work, management, morals, politics, metaphysics, God, and how to discover oneself.

The pdf is available here for free download. The paperback is available from Amazon at cost-price:
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Some philosophers believe that because ignorance tends to excuse, a blameworthy actor will either be a knowing wrongdoer or her ignorance will be traceable to a prior instance of knowing wrongdoing. I argue that this claim is false because a wrongdoer’s behavior can exhibit moral and attributional qualities that are sufficient for blameworthiness even if she never acted akratically. However, while blameworthiness does not depend on a wrongdoer recognizing the moral status of her behavior, it often does depend on the wrongdoer being aware of the likely consequences of her behavior. Without this latter sort of awareness, an agent’s behavior may lack the moral features that make blaming responses appropriate. Moreover, what is often required in this context is actual awareness of the consequences of one’s behavior. Thus, the mere fact that an agent could have or should have been aware of the consequences of her behavior is in many cases not sufficient for genuine moral blameworthiness.

Moral philosophers and psychologists often assume that people judge morally lucky and morally unlucky agents differently, an assumption that stands at the heart of the puzzle of moral luck. We examine whether the asymmetry is found for reflective intuitions regarding wrongness, blame, permissibility and punishment judgments, whether people's concrete, case-based judgments align with their explicit, abstract principles regarding moral luck, and what psychological mechanisms might drive the effect. Our experiments produce three findings: First, in within-subjects experiments favorable to reflective deliberation, wrongness, blame, and permissibility judgments across different moral luck conditions are the same for the vast majority of people. The philosophical puzzle of moral luck, and the challenge to the very possibility of systematic ethics it is frequently taken to engender, thus simply does not arise. Second, punishment judgments are significantly more outcome-dependent than wrongness, blame, and permissibility judgments. While this is evidence in favor of current dual-process theories of moral judgment, the latter need to be qualified since punishment does not pattern with blame. Third, in between-subjects experiments, outcome has an effect on all four types of moral judgments. This effect is mediated by negligence ascriptions and can ultimately be explained as due to differing probability ascriptions across cases.

A quali condizioni una condotta che offende beni giuridici fondamentali, quali la vita e l'integrità fisica della persona, può dirsi colposa per il diritto penale? Questo studio porta ad interrogarsi sul metodo di definizione del dovere di diligenza, nonché sui criteri di giudizio in base ai quali esso può ritenersi inosservato, giustificandosi altresì l'imputazione di colpevolezza.
Il limite della libertà di svolgere attività generalmente rischiose, ma socialmente utili, allo scopo di non arrecare danno ad altri, è segnato da un dovere di conoscenza. Specularmente, esso indica anche il limite della colpa, intesa come inosservanza lesiva di un'aspettativa normativa suggerita da una certa idea di prudenza.
Il libro attraversa diversi scenari, dalla società del rischio novecentesca all'apparizione dell'intelligenza artificiale in medicina, offrendo una rinnovata riflessione sull'autonomia individuale e sul senso del principio di responsabilità nella vita di relazione.

The study of problems of religious luck, I hope to convince the reader, is a needed focus today, in that this study promotes useful dialogue among theologians, philosophers, and researchers in the cognitive science of religions. I describe them as a family of problems because of their inter-connectedness, and produce the very first taxonomy of specific types of religious luck. The second half of the paper develops the implications of contingency-of-belief arguments, and a new thought experiment that culminates in a dilemma for religious exclusivists: The Exceptionalist Dilemma.

I will discuss the relationship between two different accounts of remedial duty ascriptions. According to one account, the beneficiary account, individuals who benefit innocently from injustices ought to bear remedial responsibilities towards the victims of these injustices. According to another account, the causal account, individuals who caused injustices (even innocently) ought to bear remedial duties towards the victim. In this paper, I examine the relation between the principles central to these accounts: the Beneficiary Pays Principle (henceforth, Beneficiary Principle) and the well-established principle of Strict Liability in law. I argue that both principles display a strong yet unexplored similarity as they make certain kinds of causal connection sufficient for incurring liability. Because of this similarity, I suggest that insights into the Beneficiary Principle can be gained from exploring its relation with Strict Liability. In particular, I examine two new positive arguments that could be adapted to support of the Beneficiary Principle: the Minimising Injustice Argument and the Normative Connection Argument. However, I'll show that only one of those arguments, namely the Normative Connection Argument, can truly support the Beneficiary Principle. So if you endorse the Normative Connection Argument for Strict Liability, you have at least a strong prima facie reason to endorse the parallel argument for the Beneficiary Principle.

This is a contribution to a Book symposium on The Limits of Free Will: Selected Essays by Paul Russell. I provide replies to three critics of The Limits of Free Will. The first reply is to Robert Wallace and focuses on the question of whether there is a conflict between the core compatibilist and pessimist components of the "critical compatibilist" position that I have advanced. The second reply is to Angela Smith's discussion of the "narrow" interpretation of moral responsibility responsibility (as defended by R. Jay Wallace). and how best to respond to it. The third and last reply is concerned with Christopher Bennett's criticism of my views concerning "motivational scepticism" and the possibility of pure practice reasons.

que proferiu a conferência "¿Es la pobreza mundial un problema de justicia para los países más ricos?"; a do Prof. Dr. Filipe Campello (UFPE), "Descolonizar, sim, mas como? (ou: o que fazer com as estátuas de filósofos europeus?)"; do Prof. Dr. Oswaldo Giacóia (Unicamp), "Heidegger: Sobre Kierkegaard, Nietzsche e a Filosofia"; do Prof. Dr. Victor Ximenes (UFABC), "Realismo capitalista como deflação da consciência"; da doutoranda Diana Taschetto (USP), "Porque filósofos devem se atentar aos fundamentos da mecânica quântica" e, finalizando, a conferência da psicanalista e escritora Dra. Maria Rita Kehl, "Charles

This paper draws on the philosophies of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Hannah Arendt in order to explore the nature of free action. Part one outlines three familiar ways in which we often understand the nature of freedom. Part two argues that these common understandings of freedom are rooted in impoverished conceptions of time and subjectivity. Part three engages with Arendt's conception of natality alongside Merleau-Ponty's conception of expression in order to argue that the freely acting self draws in improvisational manners on the resources of a shared past in order to open unprecedented spaces of meaning for the future, and in so doing at once discovers and institutes herself as the self that she is. Part four draws on an example of anti-oppressive political action in order to argue that free action not only has the power to inaugurate new spaces of shared meaning for the future, but also to change the sens of the shared past. By the same token, free action is vulnerable in its ontological status and ethical meanings to the events and judgments of the future. Part five argues with both Merleau-Ponty and Arendt that ethical-political actors can do no better than to cultivate a political virtù while facing up to the inherently transgressive dimensions of free action in a shared historical world.

In this paper I argue that the disagreement between modern moral philosophers and (some) virtue ethicists about whether motive affects rightness is a result of conceptual disagreement, and that when they develop a theory of ‘right action,’ the two parties respond to two very different questions. Whereas virtue ethicists tend to use ‘right’ as interchangeable with ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’ and as implying moral praise, modern moral philosophers use it as roughly equivalent to ‘in accordance with moral obligation.’ One implication of this is that the possibility of an act being right by accident does not pose a problem for consequentialism or deontology. A further implication is that it reveals a shortcoming in virtue ethics, namely that it does not—yet needs to—present an account of moral obligation.

Contemporary Cuban art often highlights the widespread practice of repair. Fixing broken appliances and subdividing houses via DIY construction are frequent real-life responses to economic and social precarity. At the same time, these creative practices constitute political and ethical forms of engagement with crises, inequality, and an uneven access to modernity. I discuss specific objects and practices as a way to explore what repair says about Cuba today, as well as to reflect on how Cuban repair art contributes to a more general understanding of what it means to live in a world at risk.

Can good or bad luck affect a person’s praiseworthiness or blameworthiness? To agree that luck can have this effect is to say that moral luck exists. Debates about moral luck usually pit those who affirm its existence against those who deny it on the grounds that we are morally responsible only for what is in our control. In this paper, I consider what the attributionist approach to responsibility has to say about moral luck. Attributionism holds that we are morally responsible for things over which we lack control—our desires, our beliefs, and what we notice or fail to notice, among other things—insofar as these things express evaluative judgments that are attributable to us. Because attributionism holds us responsible for traits over which we lack control, the view clearly allows a person’s good or bad luck in how she is constituted to affect her moral responsibility. By contrast, since the lucky or unlucky outcomes of actions do not affect the judgments that are attributable to agents, attributionism rejects outcome moral luck. Finally, there can be luck in the moral tests and opportunities that one faces: Is the person who would have failed a test, had he faced it, as blameworthy as someone who actually faced, and failed, the test? I argue that attributionism can explain why we are sometimes inclined to answer a question like this in the affirmative, and why in other cases we wish to deny that this is so.

I draw out from Kierkegaard's work a critical perspective on evaluative frameworks that rely on a sharp distinction between agents and patients. In this perspective, human lives are shaped by complex entanglements of actions and sufferings. By abstracting away from this complexity, the agent/patient dichotomy occludes important ethical phenomena. I focus here on one such phenomenon: 'ambiguous guilt'.

In this paper I will examine the impact of the problem of moral luck upon Kant’s moral and political philosophy, as well as upon some legal institutions, such as tort law and different punishments for successful and unsuccessful criminal attempts. In the case of Kantian moral philosophy, the problem of moral luck substantively undermines its ability to coherently articulate our moral experiences and intuitions. However, it does not have the same effect upon his political philosophy. Nevertheless, for the justification of some legal institutions in which the assignment of responsibility is essential, moral luck offers disturbing challenges.

T.M. Scanlon has recently proposed what I term a 'double attitude' account of blame, wherein blame is the revision of one's attitudes in light of another person's conduct, conduct that we believe reveals that the individual lacks the normative attitudes we judge essential to our relationship with her. Scanlon proposes that this account justifies differences in blame that in turn reflect differences in outcome luck. Here I argue that although the double attitude account can justify blame's being sensitive to outcome
luck, it cannot justify allocating blame differently when agents with the same attitudes differ only with respect to the luck-based outcomes of their actions. However, Scanlon's own contractualist theory of morality can be invoked to show that the double
attitude account is compatible with blame-based sanctions (e.g., compensation mandated when negligence or reckless result in harm) being sensitive to outcome luck. The resultant view of blame and luck remains desert-based while making sense of the common intuition that differences in outcome luck can matter to how lucky and unlucky individuals are justifiably treated.

The Luck Problem is frequently regarded as one of the most serious difficulties for libertarian accounts of free will. This paper argues that the Luck Problem is either a problem for compatibilists too, or else it is not a problem for either libertarians or compatibilists. I go on to argue that the most promising horn to take is the "no problem for either." The core of the argument is that there is good reason to think at least some compatibilist accounts have a satisfactory answer to the Luck Problem, and that (surprisingly) many libertarian accounts can help themselves to that solution.

Contemporary Western discourse on freedom and choice – some of the most championed modern values – is usually anchored in the concept cluster of free will and autonomous choice. In turn, academic research on free will in philosophy (including experimental philosophy) and psychology is largely based on a limited conceptual framework with roots in particular debates in Christianity and European philosophy. This framework is currently challenged by multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches applied in the fields of area and Asian studies, comparative philosophy, and also empirical research in cross-cultural psychology, and anthropology. One reason for this challenge is that the dominant Western academic approach, with its almost exclusive focus on concepts of free will and causal determinism, neglects the multitude of non-Western cultural traditions. In most parts of the world, these traditions continue to shape everyday practices and conceptualizations of free action, choice, and decision. Traditions also provide various strategies for navigating the constraints on human agency.

In the present multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary conference, we invited scholars from philosophy, psychology, anthropology, Asian studies, religious studies and other related fields to discuss theoretical alternatives to the dominant framework that are sensitive to cultural differences and local contexts as well as empirical research – especially cross-cultural and cross-linguistic – on conceptualizations of free and constrained action and cultural practices in dealing with these constraints.

The nexus of the moral luck debate is the control principle, which says that people are responsible only for things within their control. In this paper, I will first argue that the control principle should be restrained to blameworthiness, because responsibility is too wide a concept to square with control. Many deniers of moral luck appeal to the intuitiveness of the control principle. Defenders of moral luck do not share this intuition and demand a stronger defence of the control principle. I will establish a defence of the control principle based on the value of simplicity for selecting a theory of blameworthiness. A simpler theory of blameworthiness is more likely to be true, and not being falsely judged blameworthy is desirable. I will conclude that simplicity advices the acceptance of the control principle over other theories of blameworthiness that embrace factors beyond control.

This reply to Carolina Sartorio's " Resultant Luck and the Thirsty Traveler " begins with a discussion of earlier treatments of the thirsty traveler puzzle. I emphasize the way in which adjustments to the case can elicit varying intuitions and conclude with a suggestion as to why the case is so difficult to analyze. Next, I turn to Sartorio's analysis of the puzzle. I largely agree with her judgments about the causal issues in the case but I am less certain about the conclusions she draws with respect to moral responsibility. I conclude with some reflections on Sartorio's claim that causation and moral responsibility come apart in the thirsty traveler puzzle. I suggest that this might be true in a way other than the one that Sartorio has in mind; my proposal raises issues about moral luck in addition to those that Sartorio considers

In a brief section of The Theory of Moral Sentiments that has often been overlooked we find a fascinating discussion of the phenomenon of moral luck. This paper argues that Smith's discussion is important for two reasons. First, for what it tells us about the role our psychology, including some of its more 'irregular' features, plays in allowing us to reap the benefits of social cooperation. Second, for the novel solution it suggests to the problem of moral luck.