The phenomenon where factors beyond an agent's control influence the moral assessment of their actions. It challenges the principle that people should only be morally judged for what they can control.
The term was coined by philosopher Bernard Williams in 1976, though the concept has ancient roots. Williams identified how luck affects moral evaluation in ways that seem to undermine traditional notions of moral responsibility and desert.
Consider two equally reckless drivers — one hits a child who runs into the street, the other doesn't because no child appears. Should they be judged differently morally when the only difference was luck? This paradox suggests that either moral responsibility is more fragile than we think, or our judgments are systematically unfair.
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