Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-bp2c4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-19T23:06:28.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Drawing a Line: Rejecting Resultant Moral Luck Alone

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2025

Huzeyfe Demirtas Open the ORCID record for Huzeyfe Demirtas [Opens in a new window]
Huzeyfe Demirtas*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
*
Emails: huzeyfedemirtas@gmail.com; hdemirtas@fas.harvard.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The most popular position in the moral luck debate is to reject resultant moral luck while accepting the possibility of other types of moral luck. But it is unclear whether this position is stable. Some argue that luck is luck and if it is relevant for moral responsibility anywhere, it is relevant everywhere, and vice versa. Some argue that given the similarities between circumstantial moral luck and resultant moral luck, there is good evidence that if the former exists, so does the latter. The challenge is especially pressing for the large group that exclusively deny resultant moral luck. I argue that rejecting resultant moral luck alone is a stable and plausible position. This is because, in a nutshell, the other types of luck can but the results of an action cannot affect what makes one morally responsible.

Keywords

moral luckresultant moral luckcircumstantial moral luckconstitutive moral luckmoral responsibilityfree willline-drawing challenge

Information

Type
Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , April 2024 , pp. 160 - 173
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Inc

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Anderson, M. B. (2019). Moral luck as moral lack of control. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 57(1), 5–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balaguer, M. (2004). A coherent, naturalistic, and plausible formulation of libertarian free will. Noûs, 38(3), 379–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chisholm, R. M. (1966). Freedom and action. In Lehrer, K. (Ed.), Freedom and determinism (pp. 11–44). Random House.Google Scholar
Clarke, R. (1993). Toward a credible agent-causal account of free will. Noûs, 27, 191–203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cyr, T. W. (2019). Why compatibilists must be internalists. The Journal of Ethics, 23, 473–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cyr, T. W. (2021). The inescapability of moral luck. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy, 10(4), 302–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demirtas, H. (2022). Against resultant moral luck. Ratio, 35(3), 225–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demirtas, H. (n.d.). Against degree-scope response to moral luck. Or a farewell to responsibility for consequences. Manuscript under preparation.Google Scholar
Demirtas, H. (2025). AI responsibility gap: Not new, inevitable, unproblematic. Ethics and Information Technology, 27(1), 1–10.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, D. (2012). Being responsible, taking Responsibility, and penumbral agency. In Heuer, U. & Lang, G. (Eds.), Luck, value, and commitment: Themes from the ethics of Bernard Williams (pp. 95–131). Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Enoch, D., & Marmor, A. (2007). The case against moral luck. Law and Philosophy, 26, 405–436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrante, M. (2009). Recasting the problem of resultant luck. Legal Theory, 15(4), 267–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, J. M. (2007). Compatibilism. In Fischer, et al. (Eds.), Four views on free will (pp. 44–84). Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Fischer, J. M., & Ravizza, M. (1998). Responsibility and control: A theory of moral responsibility. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankfurt, H. (1971). Freedom of the will and the concept of a person. The Journal of Philosophy, 68(1), 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginet, C. (1997). Freedom, responsibility, and agency. Journal of Ethics, 1, 85–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haji, I. (2008). Incompatibilism’s allure: Principal arguments for incompatibilism. Broadview Press.Google Scholar
Hankins, K. (forthcoming) Associative responsibility and the possibility of blameworthiness without culpability. Social Theory and Practice.Google Scholar
Hartman, R. J. (2017). In defense of moral luck: Why luck often affects praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartman, R. J. (2019). Moral luck and the unfairness of morality. Philosophical Studies, 176(12), 3179–3197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartman, R. J. (2020). Against the character solution to the problem of moral luck. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 98(1), 105–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hartman, R. J. (2023). Free will and moral luck. In Campbell, J., Mickelson, K. M., & White, V. A. (Eds.), A companion to free will (pp. 378–392). Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huemer, M., & Kovitz, B. (2003). Causation as simultaneous and continuous. Philosophical Quarterly, 53(213), 556–565.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaiserman, A. (2021). Responsibility and the “pie fallacy”. Philosophical Studies, 178, 3597–3616.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, R. (2016). On the role of indeterminism in libertarian free will. Philosophical Explorations, 19, 2–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kershnar, S. (2018). Total collapse: The case against responsibility and morality. Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khoury, A. (2018). The objects of moral responsibility. Philosophical Studies, 175, 1357–1381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Khoury, A. (forthcoming). Moral luck. In Copp, D. Rulli, T. & Rosati, C. (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of normative ethics. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Khoury, A., & Matheson, B. (2018). Is blameworthiness forever? Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 4(2), 204–224.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kneer, M., & Machery, E. (2019). No luck for moral luck. Cognition, 182, 331–348.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lang, G. (2021). Strokes of luck: A study in moral and political philosophy. Oxford University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levy, N. (2019). Putting the luck back in moral luck. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 43, 59–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, J. (2017). Agent-regret and the social practice of moral luck. Res Philosophica, 94(1), 95–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maslen, C. (2018). The case for widespread simultaneous causation. Philosophical Quarterly, 68(270), 123–137.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mitchell-Yellin, B. (2015). The platonic model: statement, clarification and defense. Philosophical Explorations, 18, 378–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, M. S. (1997). Placing blame: A general theory of criminal law. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nagel, T. (1979). Mortal questions. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nelkin, D. K. (2019). Thinking outside the (traditional) boxes of moral luck. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 43(1), 7–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelkin, D. K. (2021). Moral luck. In Zalta, E. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2021 ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/moral-luck/.Google Scholar
Nyman, A. (2022). The parallelism argument and the problem of moral luck. Philosophical Studies, 179(3), 955–971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palmer, David (2016). Goetz on the Noncausal Libertarian View of Free Will. Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5 (2):99–107CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pereboom, D. (2014). Free will, agency, and meaning in life. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera-López, E. (2016). How to reject resultant moral luck alone. Journal of Value Inquiry, 50(2), 415–423.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rudy-Hiller, F. (2018). The epistemic condition for moral responsibility. In Zalta, E. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2018 ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/moral-responsibility-epistemic/.Google Scholar
Sandis, C. (2010). Basic actions and individuation. In O’Connor, T. & Sandis, C. (Eds.), A companion to the philosophy of action (pp. 10–17). Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartorio, C. (2012). Resultant luck. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 84(1), 63–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartorio, C. (2016). Causation and free will. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, D. (2003). Caring, identification, and agency. Ethics, 114, 88–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shoemaker, D. (2013). Qualities of will. Social Philosophy and Policy, 30(1–2), 95–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talbert, M. (2019). The attributionist approach to moral luck. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 43(1), 24–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Talbert, M. (forthcoming). Blameworthiness and causal outcomes. Erkenntnis.Google Scholar
Thomson, J. J. (1989). Morality and bad luck. Metaphilosophy, 20(3–4), 203–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vallentyne, P. (2008) Brute luck and responsibility. Politic, Philosophy and Economics, 7(1), 57–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
van Inwagen, P. (2015). Metaphysics. Westview Press.Google Scholar
Watson, G. (1975). Free agency. Journal of Philosophy, 72(April), 205–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wieland, J. W. (2017). Introduction: The epistemic condition. In Robichaud, P. & Wieland, J. W. (Eds.), Responsibility: The epistemic condition (pp.1–28). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, B. (Ed.). (1981). Moral luck. In Moral luck: Philosophical papers 1973–1980 (pp. 20–39). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, G., & Shpall, S. (2016). Action. In Zalta, E. N. (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Winter 2016 ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/action/.Google Scholar
Wolf, S. (2001). The moral of moral luck. Philosophic Exchange, 31, 4–19.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, M. (1997). Moral responsibility and ignorance. Ethics, 107(3), 410–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimmerman, M. (2002). Taking luck seriously. Journal of Philosophy, 99(11), 553–576.CrossRefGoogle Scholar