Luck's Mischief: Obligation and Blameworthiness on a Thread
Ishtiyaque Haji
Abstract
Something is subject to luck if it is beyond our control. The book shows that luck detrimentally affects both moral obligation and moral responsibility. The book argues that factors influencing the way we are, together with considerations that link motivation and ability to perform intentional actions, frequently preclude our being able to do otherwise. Since obligation requires that we can do otherwise, luck compromises the range of what is morally obligatory for us. This result, together with principles that conjoin responsibility and obligation, is then exploited to derive the further skept ... More
Something is subject to luck if it is beyond our control. The book shows that luck detrimentally affects both moral obligation and moral responsibility. The book argues that factors influencing the way we are, together with considerations that link motivation and ability to perform intentional actions, frequently preclude our being able to do otherwise. Since obligation requires that we can do otherwise, luck compromises the range of what is morally obligatory for us. This result, together with principles that conjoin responsibility and obligation, is then exploited to derive the further skeptical conclusion that behavior for which we are morally responsible is limited as well. The book discusses the impact of these conclusions on “strong character” (being disposed to fulfill one’s moral obligations and to avoid wrongdoing), “weak character” (being disposed to wrongdoing), and on some putative moral aims of child education. Finally, it draws some lessons that the sort of constrained skepticism about responsibility that the book argues for has for the traditional dilemma concerning determinism and free will or responsibility.
Keywords:
luck,
moral obligation,
moral responsibility,
freedom to do otherwise,
control
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190260774 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190260774.001.0001 |
