is a postdoctoral research fellow with the Gothenburg Responsibility Project at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. He is the author of In Defense of Moral Luck: Why Luck Often Affects Praiseworthiness and Blameworthiness (2017), and co-editor of The Routledge Handbook of Theories of Luck (forthcoming).
There is a contradiction in our ordinary ideas about moral responsibility. Let’s explore it by considering two examples. Killer, our first character, is at a party and drives home drunk. At a certain point in her journey, she swerves, hits the curb, and kills a pedestrian who was on the curb. Merely Reckless, our second character, is in every way exactly like Killer but, when she swerves and hits a curb, she kills no one. There wasn’t a pedestrian on the curb for her to kill. The difference between Killer and Merely Reckless is a matter of luck.
Does Killer deserve more blame – that is, resentment and indignation – than Merely Reckless? Or, do Killer and Merely Reckless deserve the same degree of blame? We feel a pull to answer ‘yes’ to both questions. Let’s consider why.