> [!abstract] > Moral luck describes circumstances whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences, even if it is clear that said agent did not have full control over either the action or its consequences. This term, introduced by Bernard Williams, has been developed, along with its significance to a coherent moral theory, by Williams and Thomas Nagel in their respective essays on the subject. > > Given the notion of equating moral responsibility with voluntary action, however, moral luck leads to counterintuitive solutions. This is illustrated by an example of a traffic accident. Driver A, in a moment of inattention, runs a red light as a child is crossing the street. Driver A tries to avoid hitting the child but fails and the child dies. Driver B also runs a red light, but no one is crossing and only gets a traffic ticket. > > If a bystander is asked to morally evaluate Drivers A and B, they may assign Driver A more moral blame than Driver B because Driver A's course of action resulted in a death. However, there are no differences in the controllable actions performed by Drivers A and B. The only disparity is an external uncontrollable event. If it is given that moral responsibility should only be relevant when the agent voluntarily performed or failed to perform some action, Drivers A and B should be blamed equally. This may be intuitively problematic, as one situation resulted in a death ("Moral luck", 2025). ## References - Moral luck. (2025, January 4). In *Wikipedia*. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Moral_luck&oldid=1263708358 ## Related - [[Determinism]]