Moral Luck

Many of us are inclined to accept something like the following principle: We can only be properly morally assessed for what is in our control. And yet our ordinary practices seem to frequently violate this principle. The resulting tension, and the attempt to resolve it, is the problem of moral luck. For example, we tend to punish and think worse of the negligent driver who kills a child than we do the equally negligent driver who was lucky there was no child in his path. Thus, the lucky outcomes of our actions do seem to affect the extent to which we hold and are held responsible, but these are not things over which we exercise control. And, as Thomas Nagel famously illustrated in his response to Bernard Williams (the two of which papers form the founding documents of the moral luck debate), the influence of luck is not limited to outcomes. For the circumstances in which we find ourselves and, indeed, our very constitution are also shaped by luck. Since the publication of Williams’ and Nagel’s papers, the existence and breadth of moral luck has been hotly debated. This debate is not a mere intellectual trifle but, as the essays in this volume illustrate, a debate which lies at the heart of free will, responsibility, identity, causation, and self-creation.

Peter A. French is Emeritus Lincoln Professor of Ethics and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. He was the Founding Director of the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics and its Director from 2000 to 2013. Before that he was the Cole Chair in Ethics, Director of the Ethics Center, and Chair of the Department of Philosophy of the University of South Florida. He was the Lennox Distinguished Professor and Chair of Philosophy at Trinity University, and served as Exxon Distinguished Research Professor in the Center for the Study of Values at the University of Delaware. During his 51-year career in academia he has also been a professor of philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Morris, Dalhousie University, and Northern Arizona University. Dr. French earned a B.A. from Gettysburg College, an M.A. from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. from the University of Miami, and did post doctoral work at Oxford University. He was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) degree for his work in philosophy from Gettysburg College in 2006. Dr. French is the author of twenty-one books including War and Moral Dissonance; The Virtues of Vengeance; Cowboy Metaphysics; Ethics and College Sports; Corporate Ethics; Responsibility Matters; Collective and Corporate Responsibility; Ethics in Government; and The Scope of Morality. Some of his works have been translated into Chinese, Japanese, German, Italian, French, Serbian, and Spanish. Dr. French also was the editor of the Journal of Social Philosophy. He has published scores of articles in the major philosophical and legal journals and reviews, many of which have been anthologized. In 2008 the APA’s Newsletter on Philosophy and Law dedicated an issue to him, and at its 2014 Central Division meetings in Chicago, the APA honored him with a session on his work. Fifteen philosophers and legal theorists contributed chapters to the book Reflections on Ethics and Responsibility: Essays in Honor of Peter A. French, edited by Zachary Goldberg (2017).

Howard K. Wettstein is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. His Ph.D. is from the City University of New York and his B.A. from Yeshiva College. In 2013 his book The Significance of Religious Experience was published by Oxford University Press. Earlier books include Has Semantics Rested On a Mistake? and Other Essays (Stanford University Press, 1991) and The Magic Prism: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language (Oxford University Press, 2004). He has edited or co-edited several volumes including Themes From Kaplan and Diasporas and Exiles: Varieties of Jewish Identity. Wettstein senses the approach of his forthexisting book, The Fabric of Faith.

Andrew C. Khoury is Instructor of Philosophy at Arizona State University. Prior to that he was Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics. He has published in a number of journals including Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, and Philosophical Studies.

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