Strokes of luck : a study in moral and political philosophy / Gerald Lang.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lang, Gerald R., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fortune.

Ethics.

Distributive justice.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (301 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

Gerald Lang examines the role of luck in moral and political philosophy. He argues that luck plays a positive role in determining the moral character of acts and also of agents. In political questions of justice, he argues against attempts to neutralize luck, and in favour of an alternative approach that emphasizes fairness.

Contents:

Cover

Strokes of Luck: A Study in Moral and Political Philosophy

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. Moral Luck: Old and New

2. What is Luck?

3. Types of Moral Luck

4. Moral Luck and Free Will

5. Moral Luck, Blameworthiness, and Responsibility

6. Moral Luck as a Distributive Problem

Part I: Luck and Blameworthiness

1: What Results from Resultant Luck?

1.1. Two Cases

1.2. Three Rival Approaches

1.2.1. The Strict Liability Account

1.2.2. The Anti-LuckAccount

1.2.3. The Restricted Luck-SensitiveAccount

1.3. The Structure of the Anti-LuckAccount

1.3.1. Two Principles

1.3.2. The Control Requirement and the Irrelevance Intuition

1.3.3. The Parity Requirement and the Fairness Intuition

1.4. Three Forms of Resultant Luck

1.4.1. Aim-SensitiveLuck

1.4.2. Pure Interpersonal Luck

1.4.3. Pure Comparative Luck

1.5. Why the Accommodation Strategies Fail

1.5.1. The Epistemic Strategy

1.5.2. The Deterrence Strategy

1.5.3. The Taking Responsibility Strategy

1.5.4. The Next Steps

2: Resultant Luck and the Irrelevance Intuition

2.1. The Two Buttons Case

2.1.1. The Relevance Claim

2.1.2. The Denial Claim

2.1.3. Combining the Internal Claim with the External Claim

2.1.4. Acts, Agents, and Blame

2.1.5. Doubting the Two-JudgementStrategy

2.1.6. The Determination Claim

2.1.7. Action and Externalism

2.1.8. Does the Determination Claim Cheat?

2.1.9. Two Buttons and Comparative Luck

2.2. Assassins and Two Buttons

2.2.1. Assassins and the Relevance Claim

2.2.2. Assassins and the Denial Claim

2.2.3. Assassins and the Determination Claim

2.2.4. Assassins and Comparative Luck

2.3. Drivers and Two Buttons

2.3.1. Drivers, Recklessness, and Aim-SensitiveLuck.

2.3.2. Drivers and the Relevance Claim

2.3.3. Drivers and the Denial Claim

2.3.4. Drivers and the Determination Claim

2.3.5. Drivers and Comparative Luck

2.4. Primary versus Secondary Duties

2.4.1. The Separate Duties Challenge

2.4.2. The Separate Duties Challenge and Drivers

2.4.3. The Separate Duties Challenge and Assassins

2.5. Two Caveats

2.5.1. Ignorance and Irrationality

2.5.2. Non-Foreseeability

3: Resultant Luck and the Fairness Intuition

3.1. Tackling the Fairness Intuition

3.2. A Dilemma for the Fairness Intuition

3.2.1. First Horn: Dismissing the Relevance Claim

3.2.2. Second Horn: The Division Objection

3.3. The Fairness Intuition and Fate-SharingLuck

3.3.1. Equal Worlds and Lucky Worlds

3.3.2. Fate-Sharingin Equal Worlds

3.3.3. Is Fate-SharingLuck Substantive?

3.3.4. Two Models of Fairness

3.3.5. The Egalitarian Fallacy

3.4. Higher-OrderLuck and the Mechanism of Liability

3.4.1. Two Better Buttons

3.4.2. The Costs of Culpability: The Moral Cost Argument

3.4.3. Deserving to Deserve?

3.4.4. Liability and Comparative Justice: Completing the Moral Cost Argument

3.4.5. Blame, Praise, and Comparative Fairness Egalitarianism

3.5. Conclusion

4: Restraining Situational Luck

4.1. Introduction

4.2. Understanding Circumstantial Luck

4.2.1. Two Challenges

4.3. Circumstantial Luck and the Distribution of Praise and Blame

4.3.1. Distributing Praise: Five Lessons

4.3.2. Distributing Blame

4.3.3. Holding the Line

4.4. The Explosion Argument

4.4.1. Situational Luck

4.4.2. Four Cases

4.5. Three Dimensions of the Explosion Argument

4.5.1. Freedom versus Control

4.5.2. Blameworthiness: Degree versus Scope

4.5.3. Conceptual Instability: Expansion versus Contraction

4.6. Exploding the Explosion Argument.

4.6.1. The No-DifferenceClaim and the Control Principle

4.6.2. Deeper into the No-DifferenceClaim

4.6.3. Two Final Remarks

5: Gauguin's Lucky Escape

5.1. Introduction

5.2. Moral Luck and the Morality System

5.2.1. Williams versus Nagel

5.2.2. The 'Morality System'

5.3. The Gauguin's Escape Case

5.3.1. Gauguin's Escape: Five Further Features

5.3.2. Two Constraints

5.4. Non-MoralValue and Self-Realization

5.4.1. The Non-MoralValue Interpretation

5.4.2. The Self-RealizationInterpretation

5.4.3. The Valuable Self-RealizationInterpretation

5.5. Justification and Regret

5.5.1. Gauguin's Justification

5.5.2. Two More Puzzles

5.5.3. Agent-Regret

5.5.4. The Absence of Regret Interpretation

5.5.5. The Modified Absence of Regret Interpretation

5.5.6. Means, Ends, and Regret

5.6. Regret and the Transformation of Perspective

5.6.1. The Transformation Interpretation

5.6.2. The Improved Transformation Interpretation

5.7. Agent-Regretand the Restricted Account

Part II: Luck and Justice

6: Justice, Luck, and Pairwise Comparisons

6.1. Introduction

6.2. Justice, Equality, and Luck

6.2.1. The Parameters of Justice: What, How, Who

6.2.2. Egalitarian Theories and the Egalitarian Plateau

6.2.3. Defining Luck Egalitarianism

6.3. Grounding Luck Egalitarianism

6.3.1. The Egalitarian Fallacy and the Egalitarian Default

6.3.2. From Formal Equality to Substantial Equality

6.3.3. The Asymmetrical View

6.3.4. The Question of Defaults

6.4. The 'Boring Problem' for Luck Egalitarianism

6.4.1. Do I Dare to Eat a Peach? The Boring Problem Explained

6.4.2. Why is the Boring Problem a Boring Problem?

6.5. Two Fixes for the Boring Problem?

6.5.1. The Dismissive Response

6.5.2. The Concessive Response

6.5.3. The Boring Problem and Blameworthiness.

6.6. Baseline-RelativeLuck Egalitarianism

6.6.1. The Egalitarian Baseline

6.6.2. Reconsidering the Dismissive Response and Concessive Response

6.7. Tackling the Paradox of the Baseline

6.7.1. The Paradox of the Baseline

6.7.2. Degrees of Effectiveness

6.7.3. Non-Effectivesand Income Levels

6.8. Three Further Problems

6.8.1. The Underdetermination Problem

6.8.2. The Partiality Problem

6.8.3. The Pluralism Problem

6.9. Should We Settle for Baseline-RelativeLuck Egalitarianism?

6.9.1. Baseline-RelativeLuck Egalitarianism and Normative Focus

6.9.2. Parrying the Normative Focus Problem

6.9.3. Sharpening the Normative Focus

6.10. Justice and Structures

7: What is Arbitrary about Moral Arbitrariness?

7.1. Introduction

7.2. Redundancy in Justice as Fairness

7.2.1. The Official Argument

7.2.2. The Unofficial Argument

7.2.3. Two Challenges

7.3. Moral Arbitrariness: The Neutralization Interpretation

7.3.1. The Desert-ScepticalVariant

7.3.2. The Inequality Variant

7.3.3. The Anti-LuckVariant

7.4. Rawlsian Justice and 'Simply Natural Facts'

7.4.1. The Principle of Redress

7.4.2. The Non-ApplicabilityClaim

7.4.3. Deontic versus Telic Equality

7.4.4. Arbitrariness and Valence

7.5. Moral Arbitrariness: The Irrelevance Interpretation

7.5.1. Arbitrariness and the Veil of Ignorance

7.5.2. Interpreting Equal Standing

7.5.3. Arbitrariness as Inconclusiveness

7.6. Revisiting the Redundancy View

7.7. Cohen's Challenge

7.7.1. From D1 to D2 and Back

7.7.2. The Reappearance of the Contract

7.8. Conclusion

8: Justice and Arbitrary Boundaries

8.1. Extending Rawlsian Justice

8.2. Arbitrary Boundaries and the Incoherence Objection

8.2.1. The Incoherence Objection

8.2.2. Justice for Insiders

8.3. Towards A Rawlsian Non-Cosmopolitanism.

8.4. Rawlsian Justice and Basic Equality

8.4.1. Qualifying for the Original Position

8.4.2. Problems with the Range Property Solution

8.4.3. Basic Equality

8.4.4. The Resilience of Range Properties

8.5. Justice and Species Barriers

8.5.1. Are Humans Morally Equal?

8.5.2. Moral Individualism and Misfortune

8.6. Moral Equality and Justice

8.7. Conclusion

Appendix I: An Empirical Challenge to Resultant Luck

1. Introduction

2. Domsky's Debunking Explanation

3. Combining the Optimistic Bias With the Selfish Bias

4. What is Missing?

Appendix II: Zimmerman on Freedom, Control, and Luck

2. Restoring Consistency: First Attempt

3. Restoring Consistency: Second Attempt

4. The Anti-DisaggregationStrategy

References

Index.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0-19-190502-X

0-19-263902-1

OCLC:

1255222631