Moral Luck and Control

I will demonstrate that either there is no such thing as moral luck or everyone is profoundly mistaken about its nature and a radical rethinking of moral luck is needed.The argument to be developed is not complicated, and relies almost entirely on premises that should seem obviously correct to anyone who follows the moral luck literature.The conclusion, however, is surprising and disturbing.The classic cases of moral luck always involve an agent who lacks control over an event whose occurrence affects her praiseworthiness or blameworthiness.Close examination of what it is to have control or to lack it reveals the logical space for counterexamples that do not fit the pattern constitutive of moral luck, and so unravel the whole.Here is the argument to be defended in what follows.1. Moral luck occurs only when factors beyond an agent's control positively affect the degree of praise or blame she deserves.(premise) 2. Thus, moral luck exists only in cases where the agent has low control over the relevant factors.(from 1) 3. Control is properly understood either in terms of chanciness or causation.(premise) 4. If control is understood in terms of chanciness, then greater control over an event reduces its chanciness and less control increases its chanciness.(premise) 5. Causation always involves a reduction of chanciness-the greater extent to which A causes B, the likelier B is given A. (premise) 6.Thus, greater control entails less chanciness, less control entails more chanciness, no matter how control is cashed out.Control and chanciness are inversely proportional.(from 3-5) 7. Thus, moral luck occurs only in cases that are low control and high chanciness (from 2,6) 8.There are both cases of moral luck that are high control, high chanciness, and cases of moral luck that are low control and low chanciness.(premise)