Abstract: Some have suggested that blameworthiness can change over time, so that an agent may be blameworthy (to some degree) for an action at one time but cease to be blameworthy (to the same degree) for that same action later (see, e.g., Matheson 2024). In this paper, I draw conclusions for the debate on moral luck, arguing for two main claims. First, once we allow blameworthiness to change over time, far-reaching and substantial moral luck becomes inevitable: almost no case of fitting blame will be free from luck. This holds for all existing accounts of diachronic blameworthiness—including Khoury’s (2013) psychological account, Carlsson’s (2022) desert-based account, and Tierney’s (2022) reparative account—as well as for any plausible future account. The reason is simple: whatever factors influence how blameworthiness changes over time are vulnerable to interference from external preventers beyond the agent’s control. Second, deniers of moral luck face an unwelcome dilemma. They may reject the claim that blameworthiness changes over time, but doing so incurs significant theoretical costs and still leaves our core blaming practices exposed to luck. Alternatively, they may accept diachronic moral luck while insisting that synchronic blameworthiness remains luck-free. But luck-free synchronic blameworthiness offers only faint consolation, and accepting diachronic moral luck undermines the motivation for resisting synchronic moral luck in the first place. I conclude that we should accept moral luck throughout.
Note: Although this talk is not pre-read, Matthias is happy to share a draft of his paper. Email James Laing (James.laing@philosophy.ox.ac.uk) for a copy.
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Workshop in Early Career Work in Progress Convenor: James Laing
