Is the Idea of Moral Luck Coherent - Essay Example

Is the idea of moral luck coherent? BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE Is the idea of moral luck coherent? Introduction Moral luck is a concept which describes a situation in which a moral agent, an individual deemed to be capable of behaviours that understand the conception of right versus wrong, is blamed or applauded for an action regardless of whether this agent maintained direct control over an action. An individual performing actions in a situation where factors are beyond his control would seem to dictate that this individual should not be open to moral judgment by others. However, society tends to treat this individual as the subject of moral evaluation despite this lack of control over circumstances and situations.1 The conception of morality typically holds an individual directly responsible for their actions in situations whereby they maintain control, yet making moral judgments against a moral agent based on what they cannot control is highly problematical. This essay explores the concept of morality and moral judgment, referencing various ideologies that maintain differing views of moral character and moral judgment. Through the examination of these ideologies, a portrait of what constitutes morality can be depicted in order to provide relevant support or rebuff as to whether moral luck is a coherent concept. Maintaining immunity from luck has been a general belief as it pertains to morality and moral character, suggesting a type of oxymoron with the concept of moral luck, supporting a type of illogical rationalisation as to whether an individual can be held accountable for their actions in situations beyond their personal moral control. Exploring various ideologies on morality The deontological school of thought asserts that the perceived morality of a particular action is dependent on whether a moral agent adhered to a set of moral and ethical rules and norms. Deontology views that it is the moral duty of all human beings to perform good to others which should underpin all moral determinations and actions. Outside of the duty of virtuous behaviour, the deontological ideology emphasises that an action should be considered moral if it occurs without respect to circumstance. To illustrate, from a political perspective, the national provision of asylum to a foreign individual seeking protection could not be deemed moral if such asylum was provided in exchange for delivery of political secrets. Deontology stresses that it is the duty of an institution (or an individual) to consider equality and human welfare when determining moral acceptability of actions. Under the deontological ideology, when an action seeks, first, to achieve personal utility which underpins a moral behaviour, it is not deemed a moral good. Hence, providing asylum to a foreign protection-seeker to satisfy the government’s utility in gaining foreign intelligence would be judged as poor moral character. Kantian deontology asserts that the method by which an individual rationalised an action, as compared to a set moral maxim or set of normative moral standards, is the foundation for conducting practical moral judgment.2 The notion of moral luck, which asserts that an individual might be judged for actions in circumstances not under their direct control, defies the deontological view and suggests that impractical or irrational criteria is being utilised by societal stakeholders to judge the behaviours of an individual without a careful examination of how decision-making occurred and moral actions measured by the moral agent. To illustrate, one can consider the internationally-infamous case of Enron, a major corporation that ultimately wound up bankrupt as a result of poor management, falsified financial reporting systems, and allegedly-unethical bonus structures for engaging in fraudulent investor relations. However, Enron sustained an employee workforce not directly related to falsification of financial records or misleading investors, but were forced, through circumstance, to either turn a proverbial blind eye to these activities or conduct job roles in the face of underhanded operations. After the fall and disgrace of Enron management and executives, subordinate employees once conducting job roles with this scandalous company are judged for their moral character by potential employers even though circumstances dictated their moral behaviours.3 Hence, in the situation of Enron, employees forced by managers to engage in suspicious activities to support underhanded corporate management practices performed immoral behaviours in the face of threat of job role termination or other negative reinforcements. However, society and corporate leaders judge these individuals for their moral actions despite the fact that circumstances were very much beyond their personal control. Enron employees must bear the stigma as objects of negative moral judgment, which would seem to support the basic conception of moral luck, yet it does not provide coherent or logical support for its relevancy. These former Enron employees may have been diligent workers with an excellent employment track record, however the unfounded moral judgments against their personal character continues to hold them responsible for the allegedly-immoral behaviours of others against society’s set of normative moral standards. Now, to examine the phenomenon with an unbiased lens, it is necessary to consider the situation from the deontological ideology. In the case of Enron, with the notion that it is the moral duty of all human beings to provide good to others, some might argue that employees of the organisation that questioned management actions should have blown the whistle to draw appropriate attention to this dubious corporate environment. Employees, under deontology, maintained an absolute duty to expose dishonesty and inform shareholders that their investments were not legitimately worth the value illustrated on financial reports. However, where the idea of moral luck comes into question is whether exposing shady managers superseded one’s moral obligations to the corporation in which they were employed. Moral luck, unfortunately, does not explain the specific, normative moral standards in a society that are virtuous and should be held as an international standard of morality. Moral relativism suggests that it is impossible to create a universal set of moral standards that are relevant for all cultures and societies. Moral relativism states that because of this impossibility, society should be tolerant of the behaviours of others when there is disagreement about a behaviour’s morality, even when there is strong disagreement about a behaviour’s morality.4 With the ideology of moral relativism in mind, it lends support that the concept of moral luck lacks coherency. One can consider a fatigued school bus driver who, by being overworked with an unreasonable set of job responsibilities, nearly crashes the vehicle when falling asleep at the wheel. If the incident were to be publicised, it would likely be the moral response of society to chastise the driver for their level of irresponsibility when considering the potential outcome to child protectionism. In this hypothetical situation, however, the driver’s actions might be deemed a direct result of circumstances beyond his control (perhaps fear of reprimand for not accepting an increased workload). If this driver in the example had caused injury to children by falling asleep at the wheel, doubtless society would subject this individual to some form of legal accountability for perceived immoral action; even when the district employing him was lax in avoiding excessive fatigue. Hence, it might be said that the driver in the aforementioned example was the victim of poor moral luck, perhaps being compared to other bus drivers in the industry that do have an excellent safety record despite working under difficult and strenuous circumstances. This illustrates the somewhat practical aspects of moral relativism: the framework or rationale by which an individual is judged by their moral actions would seem to be based on society, the perceived severity of a situation or actions of the moral agent, and many other factors that cannot be quantified. In one nation, the driver might be simply applauded for their fast response in preventing danger and be allowed to continue forward in their career without reprisal or incident. In another nation, the driver might be called before inquiry boards or other authoritative bodies to ensure some level of reprimand or castigation occurs, even though there was no injury and the incident’s severe consequences avoided. Whilst members of a particular society might assert that the driver in the aforementioned example was not immune from luck, capable of avoiding a catastrophe by sheer luck (i.e. not hitting other vehicles nearby), under what framework would society members be justified in providing a stern and negative moral judgment against this individual? This is why the conception of moral luck seems to lack coherency: as it assumes that moral action and behaviour is not immune to luck.5 The hypothetical bus driver utilised to illustrate moral luck’s lack of coherency might have very potent emotions which illustrate a moral desire to preserve the welfare and health of students that put their lives into the hands of a competent bus driver. This individual may assert, recurrently, that in the event of catastrophe, he had performed actions that worked diligently to ensure that no students were injured, but had failed at the endeavour as a result of traffic conditions or other circumstances. Should this individual be subjected to castigating moral judgment as luck dictated the success ratio of his efforts to protect the bus from disaster? This is what moral luck seems to assert: that actions as a consequence of careful moral consideration should be subjected to the same level of moral judgment as an individual who is more reckless or hedonistic concerning their moral decision-making. This can be witnessed in how society tends to judge perceived evil actions, chastising what is deemed immoral and malevolent, “condemning evil wherever it is found”.6 No more appropriate examples of this are the atrocities coordinated by German Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler. The widespread genocide of Jewish European citizens represents a type of wickedness and evil that is shared as immorality by virtually all citizens in contemporary global society. There is the general belief that those under Hitler’s direct control and jurisdiction should be held accountable to severe moral judgment even though refusal of Hitler’s direction and commands could have meant certain death or imprisonment for the insubordinate. These individuals rising to power within the Third Reich were a product of moral luck, whereby Germany ultimately failed in its endeavours to establish a new world order and were therefore subjected to moral castigation by hegemonic societies capable of exerting punishment for those who assisted Hitler’s objectives of genocide. Again, this illustrates a type of moral relativism where in Germany, during the period of World War II, this genocide was conducted to sustain what was perceived by society as being a type of greater good. This type of human destruction was deemed, by many, to be wholly justified and moral in order to ride the globe of people that were considered to be unclean or polluted. If Germany had been successful in becoming the dominant hegemony throughout the world, would moral judgment for the murder of millions of Jewish people be considered appropriate and that Hitler’s minions within his regime the product of moral luck, where a new global hegemony maintained the ability to justify all morality without any real fear of reprisal or consequence of such actions? Whilst many in Hitler’s regime likely maintained moral and ethical crises about their individual role in harming Jewish citizens throughout Europe, circumstances mandated carrying out all orders related to this German objective. Should those who took action (even minor) to oppose these orders be judged as having moral character even if, ultimately, they were instruments in the destruction of human beings? Was their moral luck undermined by an environment where imprisonment or execution for non-compliance any means by which to lessen the severity of moral judgement against them? This essay asks the aforementioned questions as a means of probing whether the concept of moral luck maintains coherency. One can assess the ideology of utilitarianism, where the moral value of a particular action can be determined solely by the outcome that the action created. 7 For instance, during the French Revolution, citizens revolted against a powerful and highly hedonistic elite ruling regime, violently removing this oppressive ruling party from the French government and launching a new set of state reforms that benefitted the welfare needs of once-repressed citizenry. In today’s society, these individuals would likely be deemed terrorists to a ruling political party and would be subjected to significant, negative moral judgment for engaging in the slaughter of a ruling political elite. However, today, they are viewed as revolutionaries that underpinned a radical transformation of the French political system. Moral luck, to French revolutionaries, worked in their favour and this revolting citizenry was ultimately successful in an environment where they could very easily have failed in their endeavour to overthrow a powerful regime. In this situation where insurgents succeeded, few question the moral character of those involved in this age-old insurrection and these actions led to consequences which favoured a more just allocation of resources for French society members. In the event of failure of the rebelling citizens, would their modern contemporaries judge their moral character with stern chastisement and castigate them as terrorists? Moral luck does seem to underpin the method by which society members subject others to moral judgement, both critical and in terms of providing praise. However, it is difficult to rationalise how the consequences of an action can influence the method by which moral judgment occurs. This conception seems to view the moral character of a certain moral agent without taking into consideration the method by which the agent considered the consequences of their behaviour and whether they weighed moral mandates before ultimately taking action. In the example provided of Hitler’s Germany, it serves as a competent example for how moral luck would have radically swayed the normative values underlining moral judgment, however this is impractical as there are many mitigating circumstances related to moral reasoning that can justify whether a person receives severe criticism about their moral character. Conclusion As illustrated by the essay’s examples and discourse, the idea of moral luck lacks any reasonable coherency. Morals are relative and not all members of global society prescribe to deontological ethics. Not everyone shares the same normative moral code that underpins how individuals in society justify their moral judgements against one another. To reiterate, two individuals performing the same immoral action, one in a situation beyond their control and another with direct control should be judged differently according to their moral considerations and genuine moral character before performing an action. Moral luck and the distorted methods of judging an individual’s moral actions seems to reflect the irrational nature of human beings and before making an appropriate moral judgment, one’s personal virtues and integrity should be weighed accordingly. Bibliography Banham, G, Kant’s practical philosophy: from critique to doctrine, Palgrave MacMillan, 2003. Blackford, R, ‘Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape’, Journal of Evolution and Technology, vol. 21, no.2, 2010, pp.53-62. McLean, B & P Elkind, The smartest guys in the room: The amazing rise and scandalous fall of Enron, Penguin, United Kingdom, 2004. Schneewind, JB, Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant, Cambridge University Press, 2002. Statman, D, Moral Luck, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1993 Williams, BAO & T Nagel, ‘Moral luck’, Proceedings from the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, vol.50, 1976, pp.115-135. Zimmerman, MJ, ‘Taking luck seriously’, The Journal of Philosophy, vol.99, no.11, 2002, pp.553-576. Read More