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It was not supposed to happen like that: blameworthiness, causal deviance and luck

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Abstract

I consider cases in which a person’s action causes a foreseeable harm, but does so through an unforeseeable causal path. According to a common view, the person is blameless for the harm in such cases. I argue that any defense of this common view incurs serious costs. I then show how a popular view about resultant luck can make the rejection of the common view palatable.

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Notes

  1. See, among others, (Fischer and Tognazzini 2009), (Ginet 2000), (Sher 2009) and (Vargas 2005).

  2. See (Bernstein 2019 151) and (Davidson 1980, 78) for similar cases.

  3. See (Montminy 2019, 696). Feinberg (1970, 199–200) also suggests such a condition.

  4. For such arguments, see, among others, (Fischer 1986), (Sverdlik 1988), (Swenson 2019), (Wolf 2001) and (Zimmerman 2002).

  5. I am grateful to two anonymous referees for this journal for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Oklahoma, 455 West Lindsey Street, 73019-2006, Norman, OK, US

    Martin Montminy

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  1. Martin Montminy
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Correspondence to Martin Montminy.

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Montminy, M. It was not supposed to happen like that: blameworthiness, causal deviance and luck. Philos Stud 180, 439–449 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01883-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-022-01883-6

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