Moral Luck is an idea brought to light by Thomas Nagel which suggests that whether someone is deemed morally good or bad is often down to luck. There are four distinct types of moral luck and in this article i wish to briefly explain and given an example of each of them.

Resultant moral luck is the idea that two people could perform the same actions with different results, the results of these actions are down to luck, therefore we must either claim that the actions are morally the same or accept that luck plays a large part of morality. Imagine two arsonists burning down what they believe to be abandoned houses, one house is in fact empty but in the other houses there was two sleeping squatters. Both acts will be seen as morally reprehensible however the arsonist who killed the sleeping squatters will generally be seen to be far more so despite the fact that this was simply down to luck.

Circumstantial moral luck unsurprisingly concentrates on the fact that often our circumstances are down to luck, two people with identical moral personalities in different circumstances will often act in ways which mean they are assigned very different amounts of moral praise or blame. The most obvious example here is that the Germans who either actively supported or even passively consented to the rule of the Nazis are morally blameworthy. However had the same people been brought up in Germany today they may well have lead praiseworthy moral lives. The circumstances into which they were born were not up to them, they were down to luck, so once again we either have to accept that the assignment of moral praise or blame involves a lot of luck or must claim that the person in Nazi Germany is no more blameworthy than the person living in the Germany of today.

Constitutive moral luck makes the claim that the kind of personality we have is down to luck. If i am born with a morally good personality and you are born with a morally bad personality then this is down to luck. However i am likely to live my life in a way that is considered to be praiseworthy and you to live yours in a way that is considered blameworthy. Once again we can clearly see that luck plays a great part in our moral judgments.

Causal moral luck is an idea closely related with the idea of free will, or more accurately, the lack of free will. If all our actions are simply one link in a chain of cause and effect then our actions are not under are control but a matter of luck. If this is the case then assigning moral praise or blame almost seems meaningless as it seems to simply be a case of rewarding those with the best luck.

Moral Luck is a difficult and intriguing problem in the field of ethics, it is difficult to see how the difficulties in entails can be escaped. Either we accept that luck does play a big part in morality or we make a big revision in how we assign moral praise and blame.

Learn more about this author, James Stewart.
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