tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133078502277941061.post8256066473549023788..comments2023-07-18T08:00:22.009-05:00Comments on Steinblog: Nagel on Moral LuckUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133078502277941061.post-4628699992054307522013-04-14T21:15:47.006-05:002013-04-14T21:15:47.006-05:00I want to say that a person shouldn't be moral...I want to say that a person shouldn't be morally accountable for anything they didn't intend to do but I fail to come up with good reasons for this. Let's consider that a person is responsible for the moral luck that they have. In this case, we can handle the examples of moral luck and describe the different punishments accordingly. The reason we don't like moral luck is because it is unfair. We have to deal with unfair all the time though. Every time we drive we are accepting some small amount of risk of hitting someone through no fault of our own except that we were driving. What is wrong with assigning full moral responsibility when something bad happens? All the other times we don't hit someone, we feel not moral qualms about driving. Sure it's a game of luck but there are things you can do to improve your odds. That means that the person who isn't that careful and never hits someone and the person who is always careful and never hits someone have the same luck but a difference in moral judgement only in the fact that the decisions (or intentions) are different. Where as with two careful drivers, the person who actually hits someone will have different moral judgement but this time in the fact that they were the one who hit the person. Odds are good that the people being less careful will more likely add poor moral luck to their poor decisions but there isn't a problem really with holding the person who actually does the thing a little more accountable.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03198825555489608244noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133078502277941061.post-61902761817803753652013-04-12T23:35:51.137-05:002013-04-12T23:35:51.137-05:00Great post—just a few thoughts. I’m interested in ...Great post—just a few thoughts. I’m interested in how you reject hard determinism. The common response, as you have given, is to say that it ‘seems’ wrong. I don’t mean to harp on epistemic inadequacies, but just because it seems that we are not “determined” to act, in no way reduces the viability of determinism as an ontological truth about how things are in a mind-independent sense. However, you elaborated on your position with the argument that determinism and moral responsibility cannot coexist. You suggest that determinism is not possible because it produces, in situations with agent A (who murders) and agent B (who does not murder), instances of holding certain individuals (in this case agent A) morally responsible for an action even though both agents are constrained/caused to act from determined antecedents.<br /><br />Say we are determined though—namely, we have an intricate collection of genetically-controlled qualities, shaped in part by environmental causes, and a whole host of other causes which bring us to this moment in space and time. Might our tendency to assign moral evaluation be a product of our unchecked belief that we have free will (in its purest sense). Perhaps what we are truly justified in doing is restricting our moral assessments to the actions that actually materialize—by the doing of some agent. Even those actions will be determined, but at least we can collectively (as a community) voice our moral opinions about said actions. Using your example, can we really assign moral responsibility to the agent A if he has genetics which predispose him towards acts of violence and was for the sake of the argument, sexually molested as a youth, fell into gang life, had a propensity to become addicted to personality-altering drugs, etc. Are we justified in holding agent A morally responsible for the act now? Or do we just know murder (the action) is wrong and—believing that an agent’s action is free of antecedent constraints—assign agent A morally responsibility, based solely on the fact that his action was morally evaluated to be wrong?Danny Wittnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3133078502277941061.post-30246284711448873232013-04-12T19:58:55.903-05:002013-04-12T19:58:55.903-05:00Claire,
While I really enjoyed your pessimistic a...Claire,<br /><br />While I really enjoyed your pessimistic analysis, I DO have a couple TINY points to argue.<br /><br />Firstly, you note that a system which judged us independently of moral luck would be much more complex. This much is true. You then go on to say that it would be bad for lawyers. This is false. Lawyers are a tool by which citizens can deal with the complexity of law. If the law is more complex, this tool will be in higher demand...meaning higher wages for lawyers. It IS, however, bad for the citizens who need the lawyers.<br /><br />As for how the justice system might deal with circumstantial evidence in the real world, I do not have any good examples...but your comments made me think about entrapment and search warrant laws. In a case where someone has a large quantity of heroin in their home, whether police have the right to search their home seems to have absolutely no bearing on whether what they are doing is right/wrong. The search warrant system is in place to protect our right to privacy, and it is funny how it can potentially make things more complex by allowing individuals to keep illegal items in their domiciles. As for entrapment...in short, a police officer cannot entice you into breaking the law and then arrest you for doing so. That protects someone who did not originally intend to commit a crime, since their actions were swayed by the officer.<br /><br />Lastly, I'd like to return to the case of stealing food. I'm not sure exactly how the two agents would be treated in court, but the ten-year-old would most certainly be treated as a minor. Additionally, our justice system is set up to attempt to right the "luck" that child has had...taking him/her away from her former, drug-addicted, parents.<br /><br />Also...I was attempting to set up a thought experiment on entrapment, but decided to hold off to see where this comment thread does/does not go.J P H Stephensnoreply@blogger.com