EMBRACING MORAL LUCK: Accidents, Apologies, and the Foundations of Social Cooperation
My dissertation, which was written under the supervision of David Schmidtz (West Virginia) along with Michael Gill (Edinburgh), Michael McKenna (Arizona), and Shaun Nichols (Cornell), explored the place of luck in morality. Focusing primarily on our responses to accidents, I argue that the obligations we incur and the moral appraisals we make are often quite appropriately shaped by circumstances beyond our control. In particular, I defend the idea that our responses to accidents reveal a sense in which we can sometimes be morally responsible for things without being culpable, and I show that this sense of responsibility is bound up with the notion of blameworthiness. This idea runs counter to dominant views in the moral responsibility literature. Pulling apart the notions of responsibility and culpability, and distinguishing between various roles that blame plays, however, allows us to resolve a tension in our moral practices that has long bothered commentators in the moral luck literature.
The dissertation consisted of three papers. The first paper is a critical survey of the moral luck literature. This literature which has grown out of influential papers by Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel, but has roots in work by Aristotle, Kant, and Smith, is concerned with diagnosing and resolving an apparent tension in our moral practices. The tension lies in a conflict between the particular judgments we make, many of which entail that there is moral luck, and the intuition that our moral assessments of persons ought not reflect factors that lie beyond their control. Focusing on work by David Enoch, Andrei Marmor, Brian Rosebury, and Judith Thomson, on one hand, and work by Ed Royzman, Rahul Kumar, and Darren Domsky, on the other, I argue that most attempts to resolve this tension are unsatisfying. In the latter case this is because the authors in question fail to address the full range of judgments that seem to conflict with our intuitions. While, in the former case this is because they lean on distinctions that raise new, equally serious worries.
My second paper explores Adam Smith's important, but largely overlooked discussion of moral luck. There I argue that Smith's discussion of the 'irregular sentiments' provides an attractive diagnosis of the problem of moral luck. Moreover, his account of the role the irregular sentiments play in expressing our humanity and making us fit for social life points us towards a promising solution to the problem of moral luck.
Finally, in my third paper I develop the solution Smith points us towards. The solution involves accepting that moral responsibility concerns more than just considerations about an agent's moral worth. In particular, I argue that we must distinguish two senses of moral responsibility. The first concerns the obligations we bear in virtue of our relationship to various persons or events. The second concerns what our actions say about the quality of our will. The two are related to the extent that one often incurs obligations in virtue of acting in ways that betray her ill will. Only the latter sense, however, is typically thought to be tied to the notion of blameworthiness. I argue that this is a mistake. The reason is that blame plays more than one role. In addition to conveying information about the quality of one's will, it also plays a role in signaling that an agent has incurred obligations of various sorts in virtue of the things she has done. Furthermore, blame can play this second role even when it doesn't convey information about the quality of an agent's will. Embracing this fact is what allows us to diagnose the problem of moral luck. The tension at heart of the problem arises because we sometimes confuse the two senses of responsibility. This mistake is understandable insofar as both senses of responsibility are bound up with blame and the reactive attitudes. Once we distinguish them, though, the apparent conflict between our particular moral judgments and the intuitive principles we accept vanishes. This is because the idea that the obligations we bear might be influenced by circumstances beyond our control does not do violence to our moral intuitions.
My dissertation, which was written under the supervision of David Schmidtz (West Virginia) along with Michael Gill (Edinburgh), Michael McKenna (Arizona), and Shaun Nichols (Cornell), explored the place of luck in morality. Focusing primarily on our responses to accidents, I argue that the obligations we incur and the moral appraisals we make are often quite appropriately shaped by circumstances beyond our control. In particular, I defend the idea that our responses to accidents reveal a sense in which we can sometimes be morally responsible for things without being culpable, and I show that this sense of responsibility is bound up with the notion of blameworthiness. This idea runs counter to dominant views in the moral responsibility literature. Pulling apart the notions of responsibility and culpability, and distinguishing between various roles that blame plays, however, allows us to resolve a tension in our moral practices that has long bothered commentators in the moral luck literature.
The dissertation consisted of three papers. The first paper is a critical survey of the moral luck literature. This literature which has grown out of influential papers by Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel, but has roots in work by Aristotle, Kant, and Smith, is concerned with diagnosing and resolving an apparent tension in our moral practices. The tension lies in a conflict between the particular judgments we make, many of which entail that there is moral luck, and the intuition that our moral assessments of persons ought not reflect factors that lie beyond their control. Focusing on work by David Enoch, Andrei Marmor, Brian Rosebury, and Judith Thomson, on one hand, and work by Ed Royzman, Rahul Kumar, and Darren Domsky, on the other, I argue that most attempts to resolve this tension are unsatisfying. In the latter case this is because the authors in question fail to address the full range of judgments that seem to conflict with our intuitions. While, in the former case this is because they lean on distinctions that raise new, equally serious worries.
My second paper explores Adam Smith's important, but largely overlooked discussion of moral luck. There I argue that Smith's discussion of the 'irregular sentiments' provides an attractive diagnosis of the problem of moral luck. Moreover, his account of the role the irregular sentiments play in expressing our humanity and making us fit for social life points us towards a promising solution to the problem of moral luck.
Finally, in my third paper I develop the solution Smith points us towards. The solution involves accepting that moral responsibility concerns more than just considerations about an agent's moral worth. In particular, I argue that we must distinguish two senses of moral responsibility. The first concerns the obligations we bear in virtue of our relationship to various persons or events. The second concerns what our actions say about the quality of our will. The two are related to the extent that one often incurs obligations in virtue of acting in ways that betray her ill will. Only the latter sense, however, is typically thought to be tied to the notion of blameworthiness. I argue that this is a mistake. The reason is that blame plays more than one role. In addition to conveying information about the quality of one's will, it also plays a role in signaling that an agent has incurred obligations of various sorts in virtue of the things she has done. Furthermore, blame can play this second role even when it doesn't convey information about the quality of an agent's will. Embracing this fact is what allows us to diagnose the problem of moral luck. The tension at heart of the problem arises because we sometimes confuse the two senses of responsibility. This mistake is understandable insofar as both senses of responsibility are bound up with blame and the reactive attitudes. Once we distinguish them, though, the apparent conflict between our particular moral judgments and the intuitive principles we accept vanishes. This is because the idea that the obligations we bear might be influenced by circumstances beyond our control does not do violence to our moral intuitions.
