Martin Montminy

According to a popular view, resultant luck does not affect the overall degree of responsibility of an agent. A lucky reckless driver who does not harm anyone is overall just as blameworthy as an unfortunate reckless driver who accidentally kills a pedestrian. This view appears to contradict a very plausible thesis about character formation, according to which responsibility for one’s character can increase one’s degree of responsibility for the actions motivated by that character. Given that character formation is ridden with resultant luck, it seems that one cannot hold both that responsibility is immune to resultant luck and that responsibility is increased by prior character-forming actions. I argue that there is no tension between the two theses. Given that agents exercise control over their character-forming actions, character formation is not a purely lucky process, and deniers of resultant luck can consistently hold the plausible thesis about character formation.

I defend the principle that a person is blameworthy for her action only if that action was morally wrong. But what should we say about an agent who does the right thing based on bad motives? I present three types of cases that have these features. In each, I argue, the agent is not culpable for her action; however, she violates the norm of moral responsibility, and thus acts in a morally irresponsible way. This analysis, I show, has several virtues. It also has important theoretical ramifications: it allows for a more nuanced approach to moral luck and paves the way for an unexplored line of defense in favor of a particular norm of moral responsibility.

According to a popular objection against epistemic contextualism, contextualists who endorse the factivity of knowledge, the principle of epistemic closure and the knowledge norm of assertion cannot coherently defend their theory without abandoning their response to skepticism. After examining and criticizing three responses to this objection, we offer our own solution. First, we question the assumption that contextualists ought to be interpreted asassertingthe content of their theory. Second, we argue that contextualists need not hold that high epistemic standards govern contexts in which they defend their theory.