Bernard Williams, Moral Luck

Moral Luck

The good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes or because of its adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of its willing, i.e., it is good of itself And, regarded for itself, it is to be esteemed incomparably higher than anything which could be brought about by it in favor of any inclination or even of the sum total of all inclinations. Even if it sho...

The Moral of Moral Luck

Psychoanalysis and the Idea of a Moral Psychology: Memorial to Bernard Williams’ Philosophy*

I met Bernard Williams when I went to Cambridge over three decades ago: he was my teacher – indeed, he remains my teacher – but we then became colleagues and friends. It is a friendship that spanned – and transformed – my adult life. There is no one I know who more enjoyed gossiping about others, trading anecdotes, offering shrewd insights about what makes people tick; but even more than that B...

A problem for moral luck

The present paper poses a new problem for moral luck. Defenders of moral luck uncritically rely on a broader theory of luck known as the control theory or the lack of control theory. However, there are are two other analyses of luck in the literature that dominate discussion in epistemology, namely the probability and modal theories. However, moral luck is nonexistent under the probability and ...

Is The Case Against Moral Luck Successful?

In this paper I argue against the idea that the existence of moral luck is an illusion. First of all, I briefly sketch what the phenomenon of moral luck is about, and then I present and discuss the main arguments that intend to show that such a phenomenon i s just an illusion that we must unmask after reflection. Next, I argue against those positions as a whole by making a general point, which ...