At 09:33 01/03/2010, you wrote:
>try saying it in a cockney accent!! interestingly Kant didnt believe
>that luck played any part in moral assessibility. some thing was
>moral for its intrinsic worth unalterable and remained worthy
>because of itself. 'moral luck' was bernard williams. see i can be
>just as pedantic as Kant maybe i've missed my true vocation? but
>perhaps giving up the day job to become a philosopher spendings days
>in a Toga on a greek island doesnt attract (eh?) cos one gets
>murdered by some dimwit soldier thinking you are a clever s*&$ too
>much by half.
?Irony missed? The cockney accent intended....
More seriously: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-luck/
"we will understand moral luck as follows: (ML) moral luck occurs
when an agent can be correctly treated as an object of moral
judgment, despite the fact that a significant aspect of what he is
assessed for depends on factors beyond his control."
So if you try and rescue a man drowning in deep water partly because
someone taught you to swim while you were a child, but another person
does not think to try because they know they can't swim, there is an
element of moral luck... (maybe, as with all philosophy).
It does rely on Kantian notions of good and bad and a generally
deontological approach, even though Kant did not develop the idea.
It does matter in a sense rather practically.
We have adopted the idea into our legal system so that people with
various disorders are not held morally responsible for their crimes -
it may be expressed differently but they are deemed to have suffered
moral "bad luck".
I don't know if it was intended, but I've just been reading Barnaby
Rudge and it rather seemed as though Dickens was making the same
point in his contrast between Barnaby and Hugh... but I know little
philosophy and less English literature so I'll stop here.
Julian
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