On the idea of moral luck
I’ve been following David Friedman’s series on Moral Luck, since I find this type of stuff fascinating. Seems strange, I know, but I was on the Debate team for 6 years in High School and College, and way back in High School I had a decision to go to the Geek Side (Electrical Engineering) or the Dark Side (Law). The Geek Side of me won out and the rest of history. Don’t we have too many lawyers anyway?
Incidentally, my debate partner in college ended up going to Georgetown Law and now is in corporate law in Boulder Colorado, after living for several years in Manhattan working for a law firm.
Anyway, here’s the crux of the article:
…why it is that, in both law and morality, we judge people in part on the basis of factors over which they had no control. The assassin who hits his target is guilty of a more serious crime than the one who misses–and most of us see him as a worse person.