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:
“It is immoral to get drunk because the headache comes after the drinking, but if the headache came first and the drunkenness afterwards, it would be moral to get drunk.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“The powerless worship Luck and Fate.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)