The Problem of Moral Luck

Moral luck is a philosophical concept that refers to the situation in which a moral agent’s moral standing or the moral evaluation they receive is influenced by factors beyond their control—that is, by luck. This problem arises from a conflict between the common intuition that moral evaluation should depend solely on what is within an individual’s control and the observation that luck inevitably affects a person’s moral status. Discussions are typically closely linked to the concept of moral responsibility.

Definition and Core Concepts

At the center of debates on moral luck lies an intuitive principle known as the Control Principle. According to this principle, an agent is morally evaluable only to the extent that their actions depend on factors under their control. As an extension of this principle, if the only difference between two agents lies in factors outside their control, then they should not be morally evaluated differently. For example, a person who steps on another’s foot because they were pushed by someone else is generally not morally condemned, since the action was not under their control.

However, many everyday moral judgments appear to contradict this principle. Moral luck emerges precisely in cases where an agent is subject to moral evaluation despite factors beyond their control influencing the outcome. The problem centers on the question of whether luck can make a genuine moral difference.

Historical Development and Pioneering Thinkers

Although ideas related to moral luck are not new, contemporary philosophical systematic and vigorous debates on the concept began with Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel, who published articles titled “Moral Luck” in the 1970s with the same title. Nagel’s article was written as a commentary on Williams’s, and these two texts have since formed the foundational sources of subsequent literature. These two thinkers were decisive in establishing moral luck as a major topic of philosophical discussion.

Types of Moral Luck

Thomas Nagel categorized the factors of luck that interfere with moral judgment into four main types:

Resultant Luck

This concerns luck in how the outcomes of actions unfold. Even when agents share the same intentions and plans, the results of their actions may differ due to factors beyond their control, leading to different moral evaluations. For instance, if two agents both fire with the intent to kill, but one’s bullet hits a bird and misses the target while the other’s bullet strikes the target, the two agents are typically assigned different moral and legal responsibilities. Yet both agents had identical intentions within their control; the difference in outcomes stems from an external factor of luck.

Circumstantial Luck

This refers to luck in the conditions and situations in which an agent finds themselves. The actions for which an agent is morally judged may largely depend on the circumstances they happen to be in. For example, a person living in Nazi Germany in the 1930s who collaborated with the Nazi regime might never have committed such crimes had they emigrated to a different country. This person’s moral standing was thus largely determined by geographical and historical conditions beyond their control.

Constitutive Luck

This concerns luck in who one is—that is, in one’s character, temperament, dispositions, and abilities. Factors such as genetic makeup, upbringing, and environmental influences shape a person’s character, and these factors are largely beyond their control. Therefore, when a person is condemned for cowardice or selfishness, and these traits are the result of constitutive factors outside their control, this constitutes a case of constitutive moral luck.

Causal Luck

This relates to the extent to which a person’s actions are determined by prior events and natural laws beyond their control. This type of luck is directly connected to the classical problem of free will. If determinism is true and all our actions are the result of causes outside our control, then holding us morally responsible for our actions may be seen as a consequence of causal luck.

The existence of these types of luck carries the potential to undermine the legitimacy of moral evaluation. According to Nagel, if the Control Principle is strictly adhered to, the domain of agency and moral judgment could become so narrow as to be nearly nonexistent.

Theoretical Approaches

Three main approaches have been developed in response to the problem of moral luck:

Denying the Existence of Moral Luck

Those who adopt this approach seek to preserve the central role of morality in our lives. According to this view, the illusion that luck makes a moral difference can be explained in various ways:

• Epistemic Argument: Luck does not change an agent’s moral status; it merely provides evidence (an epistemic difference) that helps us better understand the agent’s true intentions or character. For example, the actual occurrence of an action may reveal how resolute the agent’s intention was.

• Agent-Regret: According to Bernard Williams, the special kind of regret felt by an agent whose action had bad consequences (agent-regret) does not imply that the moral status of the action has changed. The regret felt by a driver who unintentionally caused a child’s death is different from that felt by a bystander, and this difference is expected; yet it does not indicate increased moral culpability.

• Thinkers such as Michael J. Zimmerman argue that the Control Principle must be applied consistently, thereby rejecting the possibility of any moral luck whatsoever.

Affirming the Existence of Moral Luck

Those who adopt this approach reject or restrict the validity of the Control Principle.

• Some thinkers address the issue within the framework of free will debates. For example, libertarians such as Robert Kane argue that the fact that our actions are to some extent subject to chance (indeterminism) does not eliminate moral responsibility entirely.

• Thinkers such as Margaret Urban Walker argue that the Control Principle is neither attractive nor necessary for moral life, and that a world in which it holds would lack virtues such as reliability.

• Philosophers such as Robert M. Adams and Michael Moore draw attention to common practices, such as blaming one another for mental states beyond our control, like emotions. According to them, reactive attitudes such as guilt and anger provide the best explanation for the claim that their objects are genuinely blameworthy.

Emphasis on Inconsistency and Paradox

This approach argues that accepting some types of moral luck while rejecting others is inconsistent, or that the problem constitutes a genuine paradox.

• In an example by Robert J. Hartman, the cases of three agents are examined: one who cannot pull the trigger (Sneezy), one who pulls the trigger but misses (Off-Target), and one who hits the target (Bulls-Eye). The argument claims it is difficult to make a consistent distinction between accepting circumstantial luck (Sneezy) and rejecting resultant luck (Off-Target).

• Nicholas Rescher, in particular, opposes constitutive luck, arguing that it is logically odd to be lucky about who one is, since identity precedes luck.

Applications: Philosophy of Religion and Kalam

The problem of moral luck is addressed in the fields of philosophy of religion and Islamic thought (Kalam) in the context of divine justice and predestination. In this context, the term “luck” is replaced by “qadar” (divine decree). The debate revolves around questions such as: “Do contingent circumstances determine a person’s eternal destiny?” or “If God is absolutely just, why do people’s eternal destinies appear to depend on conditions beyond their control?”

One of the most well-known formulations of this problem is the “Three Brothers Problem” found in classical Kalam literature. This problem questions the afterlife fate of three brothers: one who lives as an obedient believer, one who lives as a rebellious unbeliever, and one who dies in childhood before reaching adolescence. The unbeliever objects to divine justice, arguing that had he died as a child like his brother, he would have been spared punishment. This problem challenges how a factor beyond human control—such as the time of death (circumstantial qadar)—can determine eternal salvation or punishment, and how this can be reconciled with divine justice.

Similarly, issues such as whether God would extend the life of an unbeliever if he were destined to later embrace faith, or shorten the life of a believer if he were destined to later apostatize, constitute part of this debate as “gained and lost faith issues.” These discussions illustrate how the problem of moral luck is addressed within a theological framework.