Moral Luck - The Problem of Moral Luck

The Problem of Moral Luck

Given the notion of equating moral responsibility with voluntary action, however, moral luck becomes a problem. This problem is perhaps best illustrated by an example that many moral luck philosophers employ – that of a traffic accident.

There are two people driving cars, Driver A, and Driver B. They are alike in every way. Driver A is driving down a road, and, in a moment of inattention, runs a red light as a child is crossing the street. Driver A slams the brakes, swerves, in short, does everything to try to avoid hitting the child – alas, he hits and kills the child. Driver B, in the meantime, also runs a red light, but since no one is crossing, he gets a traffic ticket, but nothing more.

If a bystander were asked to morally evaluate Drivers A and B, there is very good reason to expect him or her to say that Driver A is due more moral blame than Driver B. After all, his course of action resulted in a death, whereas the course of action taken by Driver B was quite uneventful. However, there are absolutely no differences in the controllable actions performed by Drivers A and B. The only disparity is that in the case of Driver A, an external uncontrollable event occurred, whereas it did not in the case of Driver B. The external uncontrollable event, of course, is the child crossing the street. In other words, there is no difference at all in what the two of them could have done – however, one seems clearly more to blame than the other. How does this occur?

This is the problem of moral luck. If it is given that moral responsibility should only be relevant when the agent voluntarily performed or failed to perform some action, Drivers A and B should be blamed equally, or praised equally, as may be the case. At the same time, this is at least intuitively problematic, as – whatever the external circumstances are – one situation resulted in an unfortunate death, and the other did not.