Moral Luck

The Problem of Moral Luck

Moral luck refers to cases where an agent’s moral standing—how praiseworthy or blameworthy they are—depends on factors beyond their control. This appears to conflict with a widely held principle in moral philosophy sometimes called the control condition: the idea that people are morally assessable only for what lies within their control.

The problem is often illustrated by comparing agents with similar intentions and choices whose outcomes diverge due to luck. For example, two equally negligent drivers both run red lights; one happens to pass through an empty intersection, while the other tragically hits a pedestrian. Common moral judgment tends to blame the second more harshly, even though the difference—whether a pedestrian was present—was a matter of luck.

The central philosophical puzzle is whether such differences in judgment are justified. If they are justified, then moral evaluation appears to be deeply pervaded by luck. If they are not, then much of ordinary moral thought and legal practice might have to be revised.

Major Types of Moral Luck

Contemporary discussions, following especially Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams, distinguish several types of moral luck, each highlighting a different way in which luck can enter into moral evaluation.

1. Resultant (or consequential) moral luck
Resultant luck concerns the outcomes of actions. Agents with similar intentions and efforts may produce very different results due to luck, and are often judged differently.

• Example: Two people attempt murder with equally malicious intent and similar plans. One hits the target, the other misses only because a bird unexpectedly flies between them and the victim. Many people regard the successful murderer as more blameworthy, even though the difference in outcome depended on luck.
• Philosophical tension: If moral responsibility tracks only intentions and choices, these two agents seem equally blameworthy. Yet ordinary practices—legal penalties, social condemnation—often track harmful outcomes.

2. Circumstantial moral luck
Circumstantial luck concerns the situations and challenges an agent happens to face, which affect what actions are available or tempting.

• Example: One person lives in a peaceful, stable society and is never tested by severe political oppression. Another lives under a brutal regime and faces pressures to collaborate with injustice or risk death. Their moral records may differ greatly, largely because of the circumstances in which they find themselves.
• Philosophical tension: If a person is never placed in circumstances that would test their courage or integrity, can they truly be said to be morally better than someone who fails such a test? Luck in circumstances shapes who becomes a hero, a collaborator, or simply an untested bystander.

3. Constitutive moral luck
Constitutive luck involves traits, dispositions, and capacities that are themselves partly a matter of luck—such as temperament, upbringing, genetic endowment, and early social environment.

• Example: Someone may naturally tend to be calm and empathetic, while another, due to genetic or developmental factors, struggles with impulsivity or aggression. These traits heavily influence how easily each can do what morality requires.
• Philosophical tension: If character traits themselves are influenced by luck, then praising or blaming people for acting out of those traits seems to involve assessing them for something not fully under their control.

4. Causal (or resultant background) moral luck
Sometimes distinguished from the above is causal luck: the more general luck of how one’s actions arise within a deterministic or probabilistic universe.

• Example: If determinism is true, every choice is the outcome of a causal chain reaching back before one’s birth. If indeterminism is true, there are random elements beyond one’s control. In either case, the ultimate sources of one’s actions are not fully self-chosen.
• Philosophical tension: This type of luck connects moral luck debates with broader issues in free will and moral responsibility, raising questions about whether agents can be morally responsible in a world where their actions are shaped by deep causal factors they did not choose.

Philosophical Responses and Debates

Philosophers have taken several broad approaches to the problem of moral luck, balancing respect for the control condition against the apparent pervasiveness of luck in moral life.

1. Denying the legitimacy of moral luck

Some thinkers hold that genuine moral luck is impossible: moral responsibility must strictly track what is under an agent’s control. On this view:

• Resultant luck is said to affect only external consequences, not the core moral status of the agent’s will or decision.
• Circumstantial and constitutive factors may explain why people behave as they do, but they should not influence how blameworthy or praiseworthy they ultimately are.

Proponents argue that many ordinary judgments that vary with luck are confused or unjust, and that a purified moral perspective should strip away luck and focus solely on intentions, choices, and reasonable foresight.

2. Accepting moral luck and revising the control condition

Others accept that moral luck is real and pervasive, and conclude that the control condition, at least in its strict form, must be rejected or substantially weakened. They maintain that:

• Our practices of praise and blame are deeply intertwined with outcomes, circumstances, and character, none of which we fully control.
• Moral assessment is therefore partly retrospective and relational, sensitive to what actually happens rather than only to internal states.

On this view, the fact that luck shapes moral status is not a contradiction but a feature of human moral life, though it may be ethically troubling.

3. Distinguishing levels or types of evaluation

A more moderate strategy distinguishes between different levels of moral evaluation:

• At the level of fundamental moral worth or “true guilt,” some philosophers preserve a strict control condition, holding that equal intentions and efforts imply equal basic responsibility.
• At the level of social, legal, or emotional responses, they allow that outcomes and luck legitimately affect how we react—for reasons of deterrence, emotional impact, or relational harm.

This “two-level” or “dual-aspect” approach attempts to reconcile respect for control with everyday practices that are sensitive to results and circumstances.

4. Reinterpreting the role of luck

Another family of responses tries to reinterpret cases of moral luck so as to reduce the apparent conflict:

• Some argue that, in many cases, what appears to be luck is really related to agents’ risk-taking or negligence, which are under their control.
• Others emphasize that moral assessment is partly about how an agent relates to contingent facts about the world: for example, whether they appropriately respond to actual harm, not just expected harm.

From this angle, moral luck may not involve assessing people for what is beyond their control so much as assessing how they handle and engage with a world they do not fully control.

5. Broader implications

Debates about moral luck have implications for:

• Criminal law: Many legal systems punish completed crimes more harshly than attempts, mirroring resultant moral luck. Philosophers question whether this is justified.
• Praise and blame in everyday life: Moral luck affects how we view historical figures, political leaders, professionals (such as doctors or pilots), and ordinary agents whose successes and failures depend on chance.
• The ethics of humility and judgment: Some suggest that recognizing moral luck should encourage humility about one’s own virtue and caution in blaming others, without necessarily eliminating responsibility altogether.

Across these debates, moral luck remains a central problem in moral philosophy because it exposes tensions between widely held moral intuitions: fairness and control on one side, and outcome- and context-sensitive judgment on the other. How those tensions are resolved shapes broader theories of responsibility, justice, and the moral assessment of persons.