Moral luck describes circumstances whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences even though it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. This term, introduced by Bernard Williams, has been developed, along with its significance to a coherent moral theory, by Williams and Thomas Nagel in their respective essays on the subject.
Read more about Moral Luck: Responsibility and Voluntarism, The Problem of Moral Luck, Four Types of Moral Luck, Alternatives
Famous quotes containing the words moral and/or luck:
“There exists in a great part of the Northern people a gloomy diffidence in the moral character of the government. On the broaching of this question, as general expression of despondency, of disbelief that any good will accrue from a remonstrance on an act of fraud and robbery, appeared in those men to whom we naturally turn for aid and counsel. Will the American government steal? Will it lie? Will it kill?—We ask triumphantly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays—no fancy has she for flitting;”
—John Milton Hay (1838–1905)