Moral luck

[pancreasman]

Two friends Peter and Paul meet for a couple of beers. Neither has been in trouble with the law before. On the way home, Peter falls asleep at the wheel, runs off the road and into a ditch. He is unhurt but chastened. On his way home, Paul also falls asleep at the wheel, runs off the road and kills a hapless pedestrian. Peter may be charged with dangerous driving and fined. Paul could quite easily be sentenced to jail.

It's worth noting both committed the same act. Both had the same intent. How do we make differing moral judgements of them? Why do we punish them differently? How do you suppose God views their actions? Should luck play a role in the judgement of how moral or immoral our actions are?

This was a part of a fascinating interview on 'Philosophy Bites', a BBC radio podcast. The link to the program is here:

http://philosophybites.com/2012/06/f...oral-luck.html

The interviewee is a psychologist interested in moral development, Fiery Cushman. He's done some very interesting research on how people make moral decisions.

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cushman/...lications.html

He notes that there seems to be at least two competing factors in our judgement of the morality of and punishment for actions. For young children, their judgement is almost entirely based on the outcome of the action. As we get older, the intent of the agent becomes more and more important. Interestingly in the research, people asked about the case outlined above regard Peter and Paul equally in terms of their character and action, but also agree Paul should suffer greater punishment.

In a bizarre result, people regard a person who attempts kill a man in a restaurant but fails, when his target eats a poisoned salad before he is able to pull the trigger as much less culpable than if the killer succeeds. At least it seems bizarre to me.

[pancreasman]

Well, that died a complete natural death. I thought it was interesting research and I wondered about implications for our never-ending debate about the source of morality. Our judgements of whether an act could be considered moral develop through our life times and are tuned as a balance between outcomes (what is the actual effect of this action) and intent (what did the agent intend by this action).

For those proponents of absolute and/or God centred morality, I'd be interested in how you think God judges actions as moral or immoral. To take a concrete example, how do you think God judges Peter and Paul?

[Thersites]

Part of it depends on how we understand the purpose and nature of punishment. If we understand punishment as the negative consequences of an action on the actor (some of which, prison for example, are socially initiated rather than inherent in the action), then we can technically include an individual's remorse as part of the punishment.

It's also possible that asking whether one person deserves more punishment misses the point: I think a better question is whether Paul should feel more remorseful than Peter.

[Soyeong]

Two friends Peter and Paul meet for a couple of beers. Neither has been in trouble with the law before. On the way home, Peter falls asleep at the wheel, runs off the road and into a ditch. He is unhurt but chastened. On his way home, Paul also falls asleep at the wheel, runs off the road and kills a hapless pedestrian. Peter may be charged with dangerous driving and fined. Paul could quite easily be sentenced to jail.

They both chose to drink before driving, so they were both intending to be reckless, so they both should face the same punishment. As Spartacus points out, it's remorse that makes the difference. While they both were reckless, Paul was directly responsible for someone's death, so he may even want to be punished for it.

In a bizarre result, people regard a person who attempts kill a man in a restaurant but fails, when his target eats a poisoned salad before he is able to pull the trigger as much less culpable than if the killer succeeds. At least it seems bizarre to me.

Could you please phrase this better?

[David Hayward]

Two friends Peter and Paul meet for a couple of beers. Neither has been in trouble with the law before. On the way home, Peter falls asleep at the wheel, runs off the road and into a ditch. He is unhurt but chastened. On his way home, Paul also falls asleep at the wheel, runs off the road and kills a hapless pedestrian. Peter may be charged with dangerous driving and fined. Paul could quite easily be sentenced to jail.

It's worth noting both committed the same act. Both had the same intent. How do we make differing moral judgements of them? Why do we punish them differently? How do you suppose God views their actions? Should luck play a role in the judgement of how moral or immoral our actions are?

I remember reading Nietzsche's apparently approving comment that for the ancients it was solely the consequences of a person's actions that mattered, not their intentions -- Nietzsche seemed to think that judging someone on their intentions was degenerate.

Reflecting on this, it seems to me that a traditional group-centred morality will (tend to) judge on consequences, while a modern Western individual-centred morality will (tend to) judge on intentions.

An overview, rather than a direct answer to the OP, I'm afraid.

David

[pancreasman]

Could you please phrase this better?

It was a bit of an ugly sentence, wasn't it? Here's the scenario: Fred has decided he is going to kill Bill. He meets Bill at a cafe with a gun in his pocket. He pulls out the gun and kills Bill. Meanwhile, George decides to kill Jerry. He meets Jerry in a cafe with a gun his pocket. Just as he begins to pull out his gun, Jerry eats some salad which has been poisoned by persons unknown. In the research respondents hold George much less culpable than Fred. They would punish him less if at all.

An overview, rather than a direct answer to the OP, I'm afraid.

An interesting thought, nevertheless.

[MaxVel]

Maybe part of the issue is that morality is a combination of actions and intentions. At least that seems to be how most (?) view it - if we intend to do something good, but never get around to actually doing it, then I think we would say that we failed in some way. So maybe this combination is at work in your examples - and it requires both intention and appropriate action for a deed to be considered truly morally good (or bad).

[Soyeong]

It was a bit of an ugly sentence, wasn't it? Here's the scenario: Fred has decided he is going to kill Bill. He meets Bill at a cafe with a gun in his pocket. He pulls out the gun and kills Bill. Meanwhile, George decides to kill Jerry. He meets Jerry in a cafe with a gun his pocket. Just as he begins to pull out his gun, Jerry eats some salad which has been poisoned by persons unknown. In the research respondents hold George much less culpable than Fred. They would punish him less if at all.

Other than extra for remorse, I would punish them the same.