Penn Philosophical Perspectives - University of Pennsylvania

is not just a special case of when luck is morally relevant; it isthe only case. If agency is to make any sense, then people musteven if their identity is arbitrary, but especially because theiridentity is arbitrary. Luck is morally irrelevant when it is unrelatedto the formation of the agent’s identity and intentions.This leaves us with a view of moral responsibility thatcan sometimes take into account luck and sometimes ignore circumstantial, causes of action, and consequences of action.Luck with regard to the consequences that follow from an ac-tutiveluck will be the model sort of luck that will be relevantin determining moral responsibility. Luck in circumstances andcauses of action will sometimes be relevant. For example, taketwo cases of causal luck: if I kick someone because I slippedon a piece of ice, or if I kick someone because I saw someonecauses my action (I happened to slip on ice, I happened to seeseeing the person caused me to form an intention to kick. Thesetypes of luck will be relevant only when they are inherent to theprocess of identity formation or when they provide the circumstancesin which one can form intentions. can say in advance how the moral verdict will depend on theresults.” He gives the example of leaving the bath running witha baby in it, noting that the baby’s drowning makes what oneit may be rational to “concentrate moral assessment on theactual decision in light of the probabilities” but doesn’t fullymust await the outcome, because the outcome determines whathas been done.” In his discussion in the following pages, he-the same way. The outcome should never be relevant, becauseit is always divorced from intention (or lack of intention, asseen in the case of negligence). Thought of another way, actionsretrospectively. The irresponsible parentshould be equally morally responsible whether or not thebaby drowns. That our emotional reactions often don’t accordwith our moral judgment is not surprising; indeed, we regretevents in the past that cannot be changed, and sometimes feelshrinks down the notion of agency, I believe that he is wrong toinclude consequential luck in this contention. is right aboutthink this is because he takes it as a given that his four typesof moral luck must be jointly relevant or irrelevant. Take, forexample, the following passage:January 2010The area of genuine agency, and therefore of legitimatemoral judgment, seems to shrink underthis scrutiny to an extension-less point. Every-Penn Philosophical Perspectives enceof factors, antecedent and posterior to action,that are not within the agent’s control. Sincehe cannot be responsible for them, he cannot beresponsible for their results.I do not think that genuine agency shrinks because of luck.In contrast, constitutive luck seems fundamental to who we are.intention and luck that occurs after the formation of an intentionare both outside of the agents’ control, I think there is a compellingcase for deeming only the former morally relevant. Finally,it does not follow from the fact that an agent is not responsiblefor something that he is not responsible for the results of thatthing. The responsibility may, like a stray cat wandering intoone’s house, assert itself upon someone. Identity asserts itselfcontrol of, one’s identity, but one is certainly responsible for theprojects that one chooses to undertake. something in the idea of agency is incompatible with actionsbeing events, or people being things,” but a theory of agencythat accounts for luck will have little trouble overcoming thisconceptual obstacle. If people are things, then their consciouslong as one maintains a conception of intention, events may be“leaves us with no one left to be,” but it may only be his consequentialluck that ought to be dismissed as morally irrelevant.Constitutive luck, in contrast, provides us with someoneto be. It is appropriate to hold people accountable for who theyprisinglythat our personalities and characteristics are basedon luck, might this be disappointingmanbeing, or, more strangely, that a particular conscious entitywe persist as a single identity in time, lucky that we can smell,taste, and touch the world, lucky that life contains pleasures,and lucky that we are not the only conscious beings. Luck isWorks Cited foot640x480.jpg Moral Luck. In Mortal QuestionsCambridge University Press, 1979.son01.jpgStrawson, P.F. Freedom and ResentmentDerk Pereboom. Indianapolis: Hackett PublishingCompany, 1997.22