I would like to discuss just one dimension of the problem known as 'the problem of moral luck'. This is the dimension of 'outcome luck' or 'luck in the way that our actions turn out.'

A familiar instance of the problem is found in the distinction drawn in most legal systems between attempted crimes (such as attempted murder) and their completed counterparts (such as murder). Some people have institutional or 'social policy' explanations for this distinction. They regard it as an effort to meet popular demand for retaliation or a way of incentivising the discontinuance of criminal endeavours. However I would like us to discuss the authentically moral explanation, viz. that the distinction between attempted and completed crimes is a moral distinction, a distinction also found in morality quite apart from the law. There are completed wrongs and there are attempted wrongs and they are morally distinct.

Objections to this proposal may take more than one form.

(1) Some object at the level of rationality. They say that there can only be reasons to attempt (or not to attempt) and no reasons to complete (or not to complete). What appear to be reasons to complete (or not to complete) are either unintelligible as reasons or else collapse into reasons to attempt (or not to attempt). Roughly, rationality engages only endeavour, not achievement. On this view the problem of outcome luck is not morality-specific. It is a broader problem that also affects prudence, self-interest, etc.

(2) Some object at the level of duty. They agree that there can be reasons to complete (or not to complete) as well as reasons to attempt (or not to attempt) but they deny that any of the former reasons can be categorical mandatory reasons, i.e. duties. All duties sound at the level of endeavour, not at the level of achievement. Why would this be? Does it reflect the categoricalness of duty or the mandatoriness of duty or the combination of the two? Kant associated it with categoricalness, but do we have a clear enough view of what he means? In any event, this kind of view makes the problem of outcome luck a morality-specific problem only insamuch as morality is the realm of the categorical (or of the manadatoty, as the case may be).

(3) Some object at the level of blame. They think that even if there can be reasons or duties to complete (or not to complete) no extra blame lands on violators of these reasons/duties as compared with their endeavourous counterparts. If this is all that worries people, should we really designate it as a problem of moral luck? Is morality so preoccupied by blame that if outcome luck doesn't yield extra blame, then outcome luck is morally insignificant? That seems a big leap to me.

Those interested in reading further may find the articles on moral luck at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy useful.