In his paper, “Why Every Theory of Luck is Wrong,” Steven D. Hales presents a range of purported counterexamples to every account of luck that has a control condition or a chance condition. He gathers these counterexamples under the headings of lucky necessities, skillful luck, and diachronic luck. He concludes that no account of luck does or even can be developed which adequately handles these cases. In response, a novel account of luck— contrastive luck —is briefly developed in this paper. Con…
Read moreIn his paper, “Why Every Theory of Luck is Wrong,” Steven D. Hales presents a range of purported counterexamples to every account of luck that has a control condition or a chance condition. He gathers these counterexamples under the headings of lucky necessities, skillful luck, and diachronic luck. He concludes that no account of luck does or even can be developed which adequately handles these cases. In response, a novel account of luck— contrastive luck —is briefly developed in this paper. Contrastive luck, complete with control and modal conditions, meets the challenges posed by Hales’ strongest representative counterexamples. Only space limitations prevent speaking to all. The takeaway is that at least one account of luck evades his charge of defect. Not every theory of luck is wrong.
