A Defense of Moral Luck

Abstract

In this paper, I will argue that philosophers who deny the existence of moral luck must pay a cost that has been widely neglected. Section I is dedicated to introducing the problem of moral luck. In section II, I will try to show that denying the existence of situational moral luck commits one to rejecting the intuition that there is a significant moral difference in the responsibility of those who merely plan a wrong from those who also execute their plans. I will also show that the structure of my argument allows us to pose challenging problems for moral luck opponents. Obviously, these are not enough to solve this difficult problem once and for all. The aim, here, is just to make the case against the denial of moral luck stronger. In the final section, some concluding remarks will be made.