Ivan Bock

Virtue ethics has faced a substantial challenge in recent years from philosophical situationism. In this essay, I argue that the challenge has remained intact due to a seeming difference between the sentiments of situationists and those of virtue ethicists regarding the scope and robustness of virtues, as well as a fixation on robust character traits. Although some defenders of virtue ethics have proposed empirically plausible accounts of character traits, these tend to deflate the concept of virtue such that it loses its usual scope and exemplary status. I propose my own theory of virtue as self-sustained proper deliberation in an attempt to meet the situationist challenge. I argue that we can provide a satisfactory answer to the situationist challenge if we reframe the aim of virtue ethics as therapeutic, clarify the plausible moral psychology, give an account of cultivating and sustaining virtue, and justify the morally exemplary and praiseworthy status of self-sustained virtues. To do this, I draw on the empirical and philosophical work of therapists and the later stoics such as Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.

In the 1970’s Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel formally introduced the problem of moral luck. Moral luck can be understood as the seeming paradox between the control principle and the moral judgements we confer on others. The control principle states that an agent can only be held morally responsible for an action if, and only if, said agent had control over it. Contrary to this, we often do judge people for many things out of their control. The consequences of our actions, the circumstances we find ourselves in, and our own characters are all things we either wholly or partially lack control over, yet, we hold people responsible for these things. This lack of control and accompanying moral judgements are what is referred to as “moral luck”, and we must therefore either conclude that agents cannot be held responsible for their actions, or that we can hold people responsible for things out of their control, both being framed as problems. Here, I will attempt to give a solution to the problem of moral luck. I will do this by discussing some of the most influential writings on the problem, each section of the thesis focusing on a separate type of luck, addressing the mistakes philosophers have made while inferring that moral luck is real. I will argue that each type of moral luck only exists because we have misunderstood important concepts, and once we revise our conception of control, agency, and responsibility the problem of moral luck disappears. In particular, I will argue that 1) Resultant luck is only a problem because we are focusing on the consequences of actions rather than the intentions of the agent, 2) Circumstantial luck is only a problem because we fallaciously transfer the luck of the world onto moral considerations, and 3) Constitutive luck is only a problem because we are misapplying the concept of control onto character. The thesis will also include a section on relevant implication if I am successful in solving the paradox, including theoretical and practical implications. My conclusion will thus be, contrary to the thesis of moral luck, that we can still hold agents morally responsible without having to reject the control principle, however, this is only possible if we accept revisions to important moral concepts.

In this paper I argue that the belief in free will and basic desert is not necessary to participate in our various responsibility practices. I discuss various concepts related to our responsibility practices, including attributability, answerability, and accountability responsibility, showing how they can be practically understood and grounded in both backwards-looking and forward-looking responsibility practices. By doing so, I show that holding people morally responsible can be justified without referencing classic free will or basic desert. Therefore, I propose that, when it comes to our moral and responsibility practices, we do not need to believe in and can discard our classical understanding of free will and embrace a minimalist pragmatic freedom.