Moral Luck
Two drivers run red lights while drunk. One makes it home. The other hits a child who runs into the street. Same choice, same recklessness, but we punish them very differently. Is that fair?
Philosopher Thomas Nagel explored moral luck in 1979, identifying the troubling fact that our moral judgments are heavily influenced by factors outside anyone's control, not just in law but in everyday life. We praise and blame people partly for their luck.
Nagel, T. (1979). Moral Luck. In Mortal Questions. Cambridge University Press.
The problem
Both drivers made the same bad decision with the same state of mind. The difference in outcome was entirely due to luck: whether a child happened to run into the street. Yet in almost every legal system, and in most people's moral intuitions, the driver who hit the child is judged more harshly.
Nagel calls this resultant luck: luck in how things turn out. It affects not just punishment but guilt. The driver who hit the child feels more guilt, arguably correctly. But why? They didn't choose to be unlucky.
The varieties of luck
Nagel identifies four types of moral luck, all of which seem to affect our judgments:
- Resultant luck: what happens as a result of your actions (the drunk driving case)
- Circumstantial luck: the situations you face (someone who would have collaborated with the Nazis was born in the U.S., not Germany, and was never tested)
- Constitutive luck: the kind of person you are, including your temperament, impulses, and capacities
- Causal luck: how much your choices are determined by factors outside your control
The tension
We want to hold people responsible only for what they control. But almost nothing is fully within our control. Character is shaped by upbringing. Decisions are influenced by mood, which is influenced by sleep, which is influenced by circumstance.
If we remove all luck from our moral assessments, we might end up not being able to blame anyone for anything, because it's luck all the way down.
The harder version
Think of someone you judge harshly, for a moral failing, a bad life outcome, or a pattern of behavior. How much of what you're judging is within their control? If less than you thought, what changes?