Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Kant’s Philosophy of Moral Luck

  • Published:
Sophia Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In the modern moral luck debate, Kant is standardly taken to be the enemy of moral luck. My goal in this paper is to show that this is mistaken. The paper is divided into six sections. In the first, I show that participants in the moral luck literature take moral luck to be anathema to Kantian ethics. In the second, I explain the kind of luck I am going to focus on here: consequence luck, a species of resultant luck. In the third, I explain why philosophers have taken Kantian ethics to reject moral luck and, in particular, consequence luck. In the fourth, I explain why these philosophers are mistaken, and I set out Kant’s theoretical framework for consequence luck. In the fifth, I clarify and defend this framework, and in the sixth, I interrogate and attack it.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Athanassoulis (2005: p. 180n57). This contrast is repeated throughout her text. For example: ‘There seem to be, then, two different approaches to the problem of moral luck as identified by two localized systems of morality. The Kantian picture tries to resist luck, but an Aristotelian approach is not committed to this’ (Athanassoulis 2005: p. 19). See also Athanassoulis (2005: pp. 2, 3, 22, 93, or 100).

  2. Athanassoulis (2005: p. 103; see also pp. 17, 91, 94, 98, 99, 101, 107, 111, 112, 115, 123, 129, 136, 164, 165). Another particularly striking instance can be found on p. 131:

    …commentators are right to interpret Kant as giving an account of morality as immune to luck. This immunity from luck is central to the Kantian project…the notion of responsibility found in Kant is such that it is incompatible with the influence of luck.

    I shall discuss specific kinds of moral luck in the next section of this paper. But hopefully it will not be too disconcerting, especially for those already familiar with the debate, for me to deploy some of that vocabulary in advance. In particular, I want to note that, in addition to these claims about the general Kantian denial of moral luck, Athanassoulis makes claims about the Kantian denial of specific kinds of moral luck. For resultant luck, see Athanassoulis (2005: pp. 22, 23, or 103); for situational luck, see Athanassoulis (2005: pp. 21, 22); and for constitutive luck, see Athanassoulis (2005: pp.103, 111, 112, 115, and 123). I define these terms in ‘Section 2: What is This Thing Called Luck?.’

  3. Williams (1982: p. 21). Although Williams’ goal is to show that this Kantian conception of morality is misguided, he concedes that it is not ‘an arbitrary exercise’ (Williams 1982: p. 37).

  4. Nagel (1979: p. 57). Nagel asserts that Kant denied the very ‘possibility’ of moral luck (Nagel 1979: p. 59; see also p. 64).

  5. Coyne (1985: p. 319; see also pp. 320 and 321). In a subsequent article published under her married name, she says that ‘[t]he view against which moral luck offends is that of pure agency…This view is epitomized by Kant’s conception of the moral agent’ (Walker 1993: p. 244).

  6. Moore (1990: p. 302; see also p. 305)

  7. Andre (1993: p. 124; see also p. 125)

  8. Nussbaum (1993: pp. 77 and 88, respectively)

  9. Zimmerman (1993: p. 230)

  10. Driver (2013: p. 156)

  11. Klampfer (2009: p. 144). I owe the reference to Driver to this article.

  12. (Statman 1993: p. 13)

  13. (Allen 1999: p. 366)

  14. (Thomson 1993: p. 203; see also p. 206)

  15. (Herman 1993: p. 6). The best evidence for ascribing the nonaccidental rightness condition to Kant comes from a claim he makes in passing in ‘Section 1: The Modern Moral Luck Debate’ of the Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals: Kant says he is going to ignore actions that ‘already are recognized [erkannt] as contrary to duty...for with them there is not even a question whether they might happen from duty’ (GMS, AA 4: 397.11–14). This suggests that if an action is contrary to duty, then it cannot be from duty, whence it follows that if an action is from duty, then it is in conformity with duty, the nonaccidental rightness condition.

    However, we should be hesitant to ascribe a view to Kant on the basis of a few lines from ‘Section 1,’ a transitional section, of a popular work. Indeed, when we turn to the Metaphysics of Morals, we find Kant making claims that are hard to reconcile with the nonaccidental rightness condition. For example, in setting out his theory of conscience, Kant says that agents sometimes make mistakes in ascertaining the moral status of an action (MS, AA 6:401.5–6). From this and some plausible assumptions about the connections between cognitive and motivational states, it follows that an action very well might be from duty but not in conformity with duty. Moreover, once we realize this, we might notice that it is not contrary-to-duty actions that cannot be from duty in the claim above; it is actions that are recognized-as-contrary-to-duty that cannot be from duty. If the agent doing the recognizing is the same agent as the one performing the action, then this is perfectly consistent with the claim from the Metaphysics of Morals and, thus, with the denial of the nonaccidental rightness condition.

  16. (Baron 1995: p. 174). I owe this reference to (Sverdlik 2001: p. 303).

  17. (Nelkin 2013: sections 1 and 4.2, respectively).

  18. Even Hill, who recognizes Kant’s explicit and repeated avowal of what I am going to call consequence luck, in the process of interrogating this position claims that according to Kant ‘“luck” and uncontrollable causal contingencies cannot affect one’s inner moral worth’ (Hill 2000: p. 162).

  19. Indeed, the first reason for suspecting that this widespread agreement is misguided might come from the fact that the agreement is opaque.

  20. See, respectively, Williams (1982: p. 22) and Nagel (1979: p. 36).

  21. E.g., Hartman (2017: chapter 2), Nussbaum (1993: p. 76), Statman (1993: p. 2), Walker (1993: p. 236), and Zimmerman (1993: p. 219). This is also the way moral luck is explained in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Nelkin 2013: section 1).

  22. Hartman (2017: p. 16)

  23. The best known attack on control accounts is the ‘sunrise objection,’ an objection to the sufficiency of lack of control: although the sunrise is outside my control, it is not lucky for me (Whittington 2014: p. 657). To judge from the literature, however, it is more difficult to come up with plausible arguments against the necessity of lack of control. One approach is to argue that because some event E is lucky and E’s non/occurrence is necessary for Y, Y is lucky even though Y is within my control. For example, Lackey constructs an example in which a construction worker throws a switch to trigger the demolition of a building; the demolition is successful, but a mouse had chewed through the wires and it is solely through happenstance that the circuit is closed in time by a nail in the wall (Lackey 2008: p. 258). But the problem with this approach, as Levy points out, is that luck is not ‘heritable’ in this way:

    …there is a lot of luck in Demolition Worker, and there is a lot of control. But where there is control there is no luck, and where there is luck there is no control…luck in the conditions that enable an exercise of control is not inherited by the exercise of control itself. In Demolition Worker, the luck is located in the prior or structuring circumstances. With those circumstances in place…[the construction worker] can exercise control over the explosion. (Levy 2011: p. 22)

    In fact, neither luck nor lack of control is heritable. That is, the following claim is also false: if some event E is outside my control and E’s non/occurrence is necessary for Y, Y is outside my control. This, which is part of the point of Zimmerman’s famous distinction between restricted and unrestricted control (Zimmerman 1993: p. 219), is addressed further in note 25 below.

  24. Driver argues that epistemic accounts also must distinguish between the epistemic states of the agent judged to be lucky and those of the agent who is doing the judging. To illustrate, Driver constructs an example in which a lottery ticket seller knows in advance which ticket will win and a customer happens to buy that ticket:

    Suppose that Priscilla owns a store that sells lottery tickets and has just heard that the winning lottery number is #637845. Bill comes into the store at the last minute before the ticket sales are suspended and buys a ticket with that very number. Priscilla knows that there was no way for him to have known the number ahead of time. Under these circumstances she would be warranted in judging him lucky—but that makes sense only relative to his epistemic states. (Driver 2013: p. 163)

    But the example is muddled: relative to both of their epistemic states, Bill is lucky to have chosen the winning number, and relative to both of their epistemic states, Bill is not lucky to have won given that he chose the winning number.

  25. Driver argues that a modal account ‘will have issues with necessary truths’ like the claim ‘I am lucky to have the parents I have’ (Driver 2013: p. 166). Necessary truths are not modally fragile, so they will not come out as lucky on a modal account.

    However, there are at least two problems with Driver’s argument. First, I find it prima facie plausible that necessary truths fall outside the domain of luck (and I would take it as an objection to control accounts if they were forced to say, e.g., that I am lucky that ‘if p, then p’ is true). Second, even if Driver’s claim about parents is a necessary truth on some notion of parenthood, a modal account of luck would have no trouble with it given how many such notions there are.

    Hartman attacks modal accounts from a different angle: he maintains that a modal account will ‘not even appear to generate the paradox [of moral luck]’ (Hartman 2017: p. 26). To illustrate, he constructs an example in which an agent ‘tells a lie in the actual world, and a bolt of lightning strikes some place nearby’ (Hartman 2017: p. 26). In a broad array of nearby worlds, the agent is struck by lightning and does not tell a lie. Thus, the agent’s lying is lucky (according to a modal account). But it is intuitive, not paradoxical, to say that the agent should be held responsible for the lie. So (Hartman concludes) modal accounts do not preserve the paradoxical nature of moral luck.

    I would like to say three things about this. First, Hartman’s argument is formally flawed: he cites only a single example to demonstrate his point, making for a weak inductive base. Second, Hartman’s example is based on mistaken ideas about how lightning works. If the agent were struck by lightning, that generally would be modally unlucky. But a lightning-miss is not generally modally lucky. Third and perhaps most problematic: modal luck is no more heritable than control luck. That is, although (apropos of my second point) the agent’s not being struck by lightning is not modally lucky (pace Hartman), it is, arguably, control lucky (it is not under the agent’s control). Nonetheless, once the circumstance of the agent’s not being hit by lightning is held fixed, it is within the agent’s control whether to tell the lie, so that is not control lucky (compare note 23 above). Similarly, once those initial conditions are held fixed, the lie is not modally fragile. So even if the lightning-miss were modally lucky (it is not, but even if it were) the subsequent lie would not be. Thus, Hartman’s attack on modal accounts does not work: there is no paradox that is preserved/lost by modal accounts but not control accounts in this case.

    A more serious problem for modal accounts is that there does not seem to be a metric for numbers or proportions of possible worlds.

  26. For example, Rescher gives a conjunctive account of resultant moral luck: he initially adopts a control account but goes on to suggest that foreseen events are not un/lucky (Rescher 1993: pp. 145–147). Hartman follows a similar approach, although his foreseeability condition is incorporated at the level of responsibility rather than in the definition of luck (Hartman 2017: chapter 5 esp. 92). Indeed, this kind of move seems to be quite common (see also Sartorio 2012: pp. 63 and 64 and then 79). However, it is worth pointing out that there is some internal tension here: the rationale for limiting agents’ responsibility to foreseeable consequences of their actions might bottom out in ideas about control.

  27. For example, Driver and Levy advocate contrastive accounts of luck (Driver 2013 and Levy 2011: chapter 2). The idea behind such accounts is that an agent is not lucky simpliciter but only in relation to some contrast class. For example, Lotto is not lucky to have won the lottery; Lotto is lucky to have won the lottery rather than to have lost. An obvious problem with contrastive accounts, one that has not, as far as I am aware, been addressed, is that they are too inclusive: pretty much anything will count as lucky provided the appropriate contrast class. For example, I am lucky that the sun rose this morning rather than that 2 + 2 = 5. Given that the sunrise problem is often taken to be fatal to control accounts (see note 23 above), I suggest that this problem should be taken quite seriously.

  28. Hartman argues that moral luck should be understood in terms of control and that because the control condition runs afoul of ordinary luck attributions in the case of the sunrise objection (see note 23 above), it may be concluded that moral luck does not pinpoint ‘all of our ordinary usages of “luck”’ (Hartman 2017: p. 24). But this creates a deep problem for Hartman’s overall argument. Hartman wants to ground the plausibility of moral luck in an argument from analogy that appeals to epistemic luck (Hartman 2017: esp. chapter 5). But if moral luck and epistemic luck are not both species of luck sans phrase, this argumentative strategy is going to require more defense than Hartman offers.

  29. Pritchard (2005). Levy argues that Pritchard’s account is over-inclusive on the grounds that ‘reflective epistemic luck…is non-existent’ (Levy 2011: p. 25).

  30. Nagel (1979: p. 28)

  31. Rescher argues that constitutive moral luck is a red herring on the grounds that ‘identity must precede luck’ (Rescher 1993: p. 155); by way of contrast, Hartman objects to accounts of luck that conjoin control and modal fragility on the grounds that this ‘eliminates cases of constitutive luck’ (Hartman 2017: p. 28). I note in passing that if agents have nonessential, non-voluntarily acquired, constitutional traits that influence their decisions, then both of these arguments fail.

    Athanassoulis introduces ‘developmental luck’ on the grounds that it is wider than Nagel’s circumstantial luck:

    Nagel refers only to situational luck and does not seem to be aware of (or possibly interested in) the possibility of developmental luck. Developmental luck seems to be a wider concept, involving all the factors which influence an agent’s moral development, one of which is the situations one comes across. (Athanassoulis 2005: 177n1; see also 173n35)

    I would like to say three things about this. First, Nagel refers to circumstantial luck, not situational luck. Second, I think Athanassoulis’ developmental luck might be better characterized as a species (not a genus) of constitutive (not circumstantial) luck (in particular: non-genetic constitutive luck). Third, her focus on character and development obscures the point of circumstantial luck: circumstantial luck holds character and constitution constant and varies the circumstances to show that it is an accident of circumstance that an agent performs a praiseworthy/neutral action rather than a neutral/blameworthy one (or vice versa).

    The most common move in the dialectic is to ignore causal luck, either on the grounds that the issues would overlap with compatibilism, or on the grounds that ‘causal luck is exhausted by constitutive and circumstantial luck’ (Nelkin 2013: section 4.2.2.1). In my view, this inattention to causal luck is overhasty. First, it seems to me that Nagel was interested primarily in articulating a backward-looking kind of moral luck. That is, resultant moral luck is forward-looking (the future results of present actions) and circumstantial and constitutive moral luck are based in the present (the influence of current constitution and circumstances on choice); Nagel was striving for symmetry and systematicity, and causal luck was his attempt to fill things out. I say this not because I think causal luck should be explored for architectonic reasons but rather because it reveals that Nagel’s explaining backward-looking moral luck in causal terms was unnecessary and, more, damaging insofar as that has led to its neglect.

    Second, even if this backward-looking moral luck is explained in causal terms, the causality need not be global: it could be local and temporally limited. In short, there are many ways of manifesting causal backward-looking luck that at least prima facie seem independent of compatibilism.

    Third and finally, I am not convinced that causal luck is exhausted by circumstantial and constitutive luck. For example, suppose Eva happens to hear some bad news; suppose this bad news puts Eva in a bad frame of mind; and suppose that as a result she decides to stay in rather than keep an appointment she had made some days before. If this is an instance of causal luck, it does not seem to me to be an instance of circumstantial luck (pace Hartman 2017: p. 93, from whom the example is taken); characterizing Eva’s bad frame of mind as part of her circumstances seems prima facie mistaken to me, as would characterizing it as part of her constitution. So if this is an instance of causal luck, then causal luck is not exhausted by circumstantial and constitutive luck.

    A better reason for ignoring causal luck, in my view, is that luck is not heritable (see note 23 above). However, further discussion is beyond the scope of the current investigation.

  32. I should note that, because of my focus on resultant luck, I shall not make much use of Kant’s Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. In a more comprehensive account of Kant on moral luck, such an oversight would be inexcusable: this text has important evidence of, among other things, Kant’s embrace of circumstantial luck and also his denial of what might be called volitional luck (luck in regard to whether one adopts a blameworthy maxim on account of cognitive limitations or mistaken judgment). However, a comprehensive account of Kant on moral luck would not fit within the confines of a single paper. For some helpful remarks, see Palmquist (2015: esp. pp. 318 and 370).

  33. As indicated in the sentence to which this note is appended, there are other kinds of resultant luck. Probably the most famous is retrospective luck, which is when the lucky results of an action play a retrospective role in justifying the action. I have three reasons for ignoring this kind of luck here.

    First, although this is the kind of luck originally discussed by Williams (Williams 1982), many have argued that his examples are garbled (e.g., Levi 1993 and Athanassoulis 2005: pp. 10–14). Williams has replied to some of these criticisms. For example, he points out that his famous Gauguin example is not intended to be about the real Gauguin (Williams 1993). But I think he misses the point, which is that the intuitions he is attempting to elicit rely on under-description of initial conditions, rendering him particularly susceptible to the ‘epistemic defense.’ (The epistemic defense says that cases of resultant luck do not involve luck in the praise- or blameworthiness of agents or their actions but rather (at most) luck in our ability to determine these moral valences. Thus, the bad consequences of an action can result in the scales falling from our eyes, so to speak (this line of reasoning is espoused by Richards (1993).)

    Second, I find that I do not share the intuitions reported by proponents of retrospective luck. When Raskolnikov claims that had he been successful, his action would have been praised and, more, praiseworthy, I think I am able to understand the theory that leads him to claim this. But I find it quite foreign. (I note in passing that Athanassoulis’ neglect of this aspect of the story is, in my mind, a considerable oversight (Athanassoulis 2005: section 3.2.).)

    Third and most importantly, Kant does not address retrospective moral luck as explicitly as he does the kind of resultant luck on which I am going to focus. Kant does say things that have a bearing on retrospective luck. For example, his remarks on probabilism are relevant (e.g., RGV, AA 6: 186.4–9 and ZeF, AA 8: 385.14–21), and the famous good will passage, discussed in ‘Section 3: Why So Many Philosophers Think That Kant Rejects Moral Luck’ of this paper, might be taken as a denial of retrospective luck. But the former are too sketchy (contrast them with Refl, AA 19: 213.4–6 where Kant seems to suggest that although certainty about moral laws is necessary, figuring out which laws apply in a given case might be a matter of probability), and it might be argued that interpreting the latter in this way rests on a faulty account of agency (Lockhart 2015). In any case, retrospective luck will have to wait for another occasion.

  34. Athanassoulis (2005: p. 105), Nagel (1979: p. 24), Nelkin (2013: section 1), and Statman (1993: p. 4)

  35. GMS, AA 4: 393.6.

  36. GMS, AA 4: 394.13–26

  37. Herman (1993: p. 95)

  38. Athanassoulis (2005: section 7.5, esp. pp. 121–123) and Nagel (1979: 33n8)

  39. GMS, AA 4: 398.27–36

  40. Perhaps the most famous version of this objection comes from Schiller, quoted and discussed in Paton (1946: chapter 3 section 3).

  41. For helpful discussion, see Wood (1999: chapter 1, esp. section 3).

  42. Athanassoulis (2005: p. 164, discussed in sections 6.3–6.4); see also Coyne (1985: p. 321) and Walker (1993: p. 244).

  43. For extensive discussion, see part 1 of Kahn (2019).

  44. Nagel (1979: p. 33)

  45. Gardner (2004: p. 66) and Hartman (2017: 113n16), respectively

  46. According to Kant, the degree of imputability of a deed depends to some extent on the strength of an agent’s countervailing incentives and inclinations. That Kant countenances degrees of imputability might come as a surprise to Korsgaard, who argues that Kant’s theory of transcendental freedom requires that people be treated ‘as completely responsible for each and every action, no matter what sorts of pressures they may be under’ (Korsgaard 1996: p. 205; a similar line of reasoning can be found in Athanassoulis (2005: p. 133)). Korsgaard appeals to what she calls Kant’s ‘practical compatibilism’ and to charity in interpretation of agents’ maxims to fix this ‘intransigence’ in regard to degrees of responsibility. But the appeal is unnecessary and the intransigence is illusory: Kant tackles the issue directly in many places, including MS, AA 6: 228.11–17 and Refl, AA 19: 75.02, 168.17–19, 168.31–32, and 169.14–19. For one of Kant’s more revealing discussions of this topic, not entirely in agreement with the others, see Refl, AA 17: 466.10–31. I am indebted here to Joerden (1991) and Blöser (2015).

  47. MS, AA 6: 228.4–10.

  48. Compare with Refl, AA 19: 161.8–9: ‘The bad consequences of that which I did in a necessary way cannot be imputed to me.’

  49. (1) and (2) can be found together also at Refl, AA 19: 253.9–10: ‘When I do what is owed by me, the good and bad consequences are nothing to me.’

  50. Hartman interprets Kant’s category of meritorious action as ‘supererogatory action’ (Hartman 2017: 113n16). But this interpretation is probably mistaken. Kant explains his moral categories in different ways in different places. But at least sometimes he takes merit to track imperfect duties like the duty to promote one’s natural talents and the duty to promote others’ happiness. But those in favor of preserving the category of supererogation seem not to think it would apply to duties to oneself or to mundane duties to others like duties of benevolence; supererogation seems to be reserved for acts of extreme self-sacrifice such as throwing oneself on a live grenade so that one’s comrades might live.

  51. I owe this point to Hill (2000: 163n13).

  52. Given that this is Kant, one also might appeal to architectonic considerations.

  53. VRML, AA 8: 427.11–20

  54. MS, AA 6: 431.33

  55. MS, AA 6: 431.34

  56. For example, Cholbi (2009)

  57. Wood (2008: chapter 14). A third strategy, distinguishing the prescriptions of ideal theory (never lie) from those of nonideal theory (lie in this case), is advocated in Korsgaard (1996: chapter 5).

  58. Hill (2000: p. 155)

  59. Wood (2008: chapter 14)

  60. MS, AA 6: 431.25–27

  61. Refl, AA 19: 260.17

  62. Refl, AA 29: 260.18–19, my emphasis

  63. For similar passages, see Refl, AA 19: 160.15–18 and 160.20–28.

  64. MS, AA 6: 431.32. The fact that the imputation is to occur ‘by his own conscience’ is also relevant.

  65. Refl, AA 19: 169.3–4

  66. GMS, AA 4: 429.2–3

  67. GMS, AA 4: 429.10–12

  68. KpV, AA 5: 110.18–27. This particular value claim is complicated by the fact that Kant has multiple conceptions of happiness (Kahn 2019: chapter 7 esp. section 1).

  69. RGV, AA 6: 3n

  70. RGV, AA 6: 58.1

  71. KU, AA. 5: 209.29–210.22

  72. But consider the following unpublished note: ‘The practical consequences of an action are those which in the free action have been able to influence as moments. The remaining consequences are accidents’ (Refl, AA 19: 255.16–18).

  73. Refl, AA 19: 63.2–3. The remainder of the reflection, however, is less straightforward.

  74. Given how he is characterized in the moral luck literature, there is some irony in the fact that Kant’s actual principles of consequence imputation are so expansive, more especially because at least some Aristotelians deny resultant luck. Compare, for example, Athanassoulis’ characterization of Kant as denier of moral luck tout court (reproduced in notes 1 and 2 above and the paragraph to which they are appended) with her reading of Aristotle and various neoAristotelians as deniers of resultant luck in particular (Athanassoulis 2005: pp. 57–59 for claims about Aristotle; 149 for claims about Hursthouse; and 146 or 167 for claims about Slote).

  75. This is the defense offered by Reath, and this paragraph is a paraphrase of Reath (1994: p. 272).

  76. More precisely, they accrue to the authors of the moral law (the community of rational beings rather than any single individual).

  77. Reath (1994: 272n28).

  78. One way in which one might challenge Kant on this would be to devise a case in which it is intuitively plausible to impute the results of an omission. But it must be remembered that Kant conceives of morality in terms of maxim adoption, so imputation of consequences of a maxim-based omission would not be a problem for him. For some relevant remarks, see Refl, AA 19: 157.25–28 and 304.24–29.

  79. Refl, AA 19: 61.5–8, 168.15–17, 253.17–18, 254.1–2, 254.8–13, 256.24–31, 257.2–4, 260.19–24, 295.29–30, 304.21–29, and 306.5–8

  80. Refl, AA 19: 304.21–24, my emphasis. See also 19: 256.24–31.

  81. Kant’s requirement of physical, practical, and moral freedom is similar to but stronger than the requirement associated with the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP). PAP is usually taken to require only physical and, perhaps, practical freedom (Ginet 1996). However, in the course of defending PAP, Widerker sets out a principle that begins to sound more like Kant’s moral freedom requirement: ‘An agent S is morally blameworthy for doing A only if under the circumstances it would be morally reasonable to expect S not to have done A’ (Widerker 2006: p. 63). For some remarks that bear on Kant’s understanding of ‘practical freedom,’ see Refl, AA 19: 254.15–16 and 18–21.

  82. At Refl, AA 19: 305.18–19

  83. This might be what underlies Kant’s argument at Refl, AA 19: 159.13–17: “The consequences of a deed, which is morally indifferent, will not be imputed; thus all imputation has a relation to a moral law, and an action, which stands under a moral law (prescription--or proscription--), is called a deed. Every factum is either meritum or demeritum, none is adiaphoron.”.

  84. Hill challenges Kant’s principles of imputation on the grounds that they do not allow enough consequence luck: he points out that agents often are held responsible for damages in ‘right of necessity’ cases, cases which could be varied to involve either merely permissible or obligatory actions. For example, if, fleeing attackers, someone takes your horse (without permission) and escapes only by running it to death, s/he might owe you compensation. But as Hill points out, ‘if innocent liability to compensate for damages can be effectively stripped of the common condemnatory message associated with standard imputation, then there may be no reason in principle why liability cannot be imputed for justified, and even dutiful, acts...And there may be practical reasons for doing so’ (Hill 2000: p. 169).

  85. VAMS, AA 23: 245.12–14

  86. In the wake of Frankfurt’s influential attack on PAP, some philosophers have attempted to block Frankfurt’s move from the falsity of PAP to compatibilism by distinguishing PAP from various versions of PAP-for-events (probably most famously Inwagen 1978). But if my suggestion above is right, then Kant’s PAP-for-events rests on his version of PAP, so this strategy would not be open for him (see note 81 above for my initial remarks on PAP).

  87. Reath (1994: p. 279)

  88. Complications arise here from cases of negligence. See also note 78 above and the paragraph to which it is appended.

  89. A causal proximity clause also might help determine how far into the future consequence imputation can go. After all, it seems odd to hold our ancestors from thousands of years ago responsible for the happenings of today, this notwithstanding the fact that the effects of their mating decisions, some of which surely were wrongful/meritorious, will continue to ripple through the human species until we go extinct.

References

  • Allen, R. (1999). Re-examining Frankfurt cases. The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 37(3 (Fall)), 363–376.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andre, J. (1993). Nagel, Williams, and moral luck. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 123–130). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Athanassoulis, N. (2005). Morality, moral luck and responsibility. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baron, M. (1995). Kantian ethics almost without apology. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blöser, C. (2015). Degrees of responsibility in Kant’s practical philosophy. Kantian Review, 20(2), 183–209.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cholbi, M. (2009). The murderer at the door. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 79(1) Jul., 17–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coyne, M. U. (1985). Moral luck? The Journal of Value Inquiry, 19, 319–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Driver, J. (2013). Luck and fortune in moral evaluation. In M. Blaauw (Ed.), Contrastivism in philosophy (pp. 154–172). Abingdon: Routledge.

  • Gardner, J. (2004). The wrongdoing that gets results. Philosophical Perspectives, 18, Ethics, 53–88.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ginet, C. (1996). In defense of the principle of alternative possibilities. Philosophical Perspectives, 10, Metaphysics, 403–417.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hartman, R. J. (2017). In Defense of moral luck. Abingdon: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Herman, B. (1993). The practice of moral judgment. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill Jr., T. E. (2000). Respect, pluralism, and justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Inwagen, P. v. (1978). Ability and responsibility. The Philosophical Review, 87(2) Apr., 201–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Joerden. (1991). Zwei Formeln in Kants Zurechnungslehre. Archives for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, 77(4), 525–538.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahn, S. (2019). Kant, ought implies can, the principle of alternate possibilities, and happiness. Washington DC: Lexington Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klampfer, F. (2009). Should we consult Kant when assessing agent’s [sic] moral responsibility for harm? Balkan Journal of Philosophy, 1(2), 131–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Korsgaard, C. (1996). Creating the kingdom of ends. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lackey, J. (2008). What luck is not. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 86(2), 255–267.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levi, D. S. (1993). What’s luck got to do with it? In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 109–122). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levy, N. (2011). Hard luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Lockhart, J. R. (2015). Kant and Kierkegaard on inwardness and moral luck. Philosophical Investigations, 38(3) July, 251–275.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moore, A. W. (1990). A Kantian view of moral luck. Philosophy, 65(253) Jul., 297–321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, T. (1979). Mortal questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelkin, D. K. (2013). Moral luck. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 Edition) URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/moral-luck/>.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum, M. (1993). Luck and ethics. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 73–108). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Palmquist, S. (2015). Comprehensive commentary on Kant’s religion within the boundaries of mere reason. Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paton, H. J. (1946). The categorical imperative. London: Hutchinson’s University Library.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pritchard, D. (2005). Epistemic luck. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Reath, A. (1994). Agency and the imputation of consequences in Kant’s ethics. Annual Review of and Ethics Vol., 2, 259–281.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rescher, N. (1993). Moral luck. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 141–166). Albany: State University of New York Press.

  • Richards, N. (1993). Luck and desert. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 167–180). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sartorio, C. (2012). Resultant luck. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 84(1 (Jan.)), 63–86.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Statman, D. (1993). Introduction. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 1–34). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sverdlik, S. (2001). Kant, nonaccidentalness and the availability of moral worth. The Journal of Ethics, 5(4), 293–313.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomson, J. J. (1993). Morality and bad luck. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 195–216). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker (née Coyne), Margaret Urban. (1993). Moral luck and the virtues of impure agency. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 235–250). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whittington, L. J. (2014). Getting moral luck right. Metaphilosophy, 45(4–5 (Oct.)), 654–667.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Widerker, D. (2006). Blameworthiness and Frankfurt’s argument against the principle of alternative possibilities. In D. Widerker & M. McKenna (Eds.), Moral responsibility and alternative possibilities (pp. 53–73). Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, B. (1982). Moral luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, B. (1993). Postscript. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 251–258). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, A. (1999). Kant’s ethical thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wood, A. (2008). Kantian ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zimmerman, M. (1993). Luck and moral responsibility. In D. Statman (Ed.), Moral luck (pp. 217–234). Albany: State University of New York Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, IUPUI, 425 University Blvd, Cavanaugh 331, Indianapolis, IN, 46202, USA

    Samuel Kahn

Authors
  1. Samuel Kahn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Samuel Kahn.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Kahn, S. Kant’s Philosophy of Moral Luck. SOPHIA 60, 365–387 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-020-00802-8

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-020-00802-8

Keywords

Search

Navigation