L26 · Lens
Moral luck and fair accountability
Judge yourself and others by what was within control and knowable at the time, not by outcomes luck decided.
Use: Guilt, blame, regret, harsh self-judgement.
Boundary: Fair accountability still owns real wrongs and repairs them.
Cues
Showing 5 of 5 cues
“Reason gives each side time to plead; moreover, she herself demands adjournment, that she may have sufficient scope for the discovery of the truth; whereas anger is in a hurry: reason wishes to give a just decision; anger wishes its decision to be thought just. ... The sword of justice is ill-placed in the hands of an angry man.”
“A man's shortcomings are taken from his epoch; his virtues and greatness belong to himself.”
“For, unless you perfectly understand the principle from which anyone acts, how should you know if he acts ill?”
Holding agency and moral luck in tension
Even if we retreat from outcomes to judge only inner character and intention, constitutive luck is already at work there; yet if we excuse everything due to luck, human agency vanishes, so we must hold personal responsibility and compassion for luck together.
Break the chain of family dysfunction
Rather than resent past mistreatment, Chekhov recognised his parents were themselves victims of a poor upbringing, and that someone eventually had to break the chain of the family's dysfunction.