A Challenge to Moral Luck

A CHALLENGE TO MORAL LUCK

December 12, 2009

Introduction

In this paper I aim to provide a persuasive answer to the following question: Why in certain cases we seem to be obliged to engage in actions aimed at providing some sort of reparation, relief, or comfort to a Victim[1] of Φ, even if we did not have anything to do with Φ?

For a better understanding of my argument, I will abide by the following definition of moral luck.

"Moral luck is the phenomenon whereby a moral agent is assigned moral blame or moral praise for an action or its consequences even when it is clear that the agent in question did not have full control over either the action or its consequences.”[2]

My hypothesis is that a person X who did not commit Φ is blameworthy if he does not show proper Concern (C) to the Victim of Φ, not because he owes something to the Victim because of Φ, but because he owes something to the Victim because of some consequence (Q)[3] that Φ created.

The duty to C, which was triggered by Q, which in turn was triggered by Φ, evinces that moral luck is an unnecessary concept to explain what occurs in this case, as it is true that the moral blameworthiness for Not-C, depends entirely on X. Moral consequences in the form of sanctions or disapproval would arise for him if he does not C.[4] Nonetheless he is not blameworthy for Φ; he is only blameworthy for Not-C.

Tristan und Isolde

According to Daniel Baremboim, the greatness of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, depends partly in the fact that the tension of the music is extended, unresolved, never-ending[5]. The music of the composition is like a series of waves about to break, but that instead of doing so (breaking), simply dissolute in the immensity of the ocean, only to grow bigger next time. That characteristic of Tristan und Isolde creates in the listener an awkward feeling – a sentiment of unease. The listener knows that something is missing, that something is unresolved; the listener suffers throughout the whole play.

This happens because, for good or for bad, persons have a natural tendency toward equilibrium; we constantly search for the golden mean, in spite the fact that some of us do it – very often – rather erratically. In the golden mean (the aura mediocritas) is where we feel good, warm, safe, comfortable. Whatever drags us out of that comfort zone makes us feel strange, anguished, stressed. We need balance and harmony in order to be happy. That is the essence of Taoism and many other “religions”.

The Duty to Show Concern – First Part

In the paradigmatic case where X runs his car over V and kills V (this is Φ), and V and only V is guilty for Φ, some authors have argued that X should feel some sort of moral guilt; they argue that that is a case of moral luck. I believe that is not true. Others, like Enoch[6], argue that moral luck does not exist, and try to provide alternative explanations that I do not find convincing either. What I believe that occurs in this case is that Φ creates a consequence (Q) that obliges X to show Concern for V. Or put in other way: X should not show C because of Φ, but because of Q. But what is Q then? Why does Q creates on X the duty to show Concern?

Before moving further I want to make a short explanation with regard to what I have called Concern. Authors such a David Enoch, to my understanding, have argued that in cases such as the presented above, X should apologize (or something like that) with V.

Enoch doesn’t really elaborate much on this issue, so I will leave it there for now. However, I feel that his intuition is incorrect. If only V was guilty for the accident, why should X apologize with V? Nevertheless, we do expect X to do something. But what is that something? I believe that what we expect him to do is show Concern, to show a sincere and transparent preoccupation for the other’s fate, as a form of reconciliation, not necessarily with regard to an action for which he is blameworthy, but with unfortunate events where X took a relevant role[7].

I will try to make my point clearer: If X does not do C he will not have omitted an obligation to perform an action to which he is obliged because of Φ, but will have omitted an obligation to which we was obliged to perform C, because of Q. Moreover, unlike Enoch suggests, we never have a moral duty to undertake responsibility for other person’s (son, employee, etc.) Φ, provided that Φ was performed beyond our own scope of control or capacity.  But still, I insist, that doesn’t mean that we do not have some responsibility to do something (S).

Let’s leave this argument here for a while. I want to introduce a case that might help to support my argument.

Juan Pablo Escobar, Rodrigo Lara and the Galan Family

Juan Pablo Escobar (JPE), the son of Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the undisputed capo of the Medellin Cartel[8], recently sent a public letter to the sons of former Presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan and former Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, who were murdered by Pablo Escobar’s death squads during the 1980s. The purpose of the killings was to prevent the enactment of extradition legislation by Congress and by the National Constituent Assembly, as well as to avenge the public unveiling that those two politicians were leading of the links between Pablo Escobar and Colombian politicians.

In the letter JPE asks the sons of Lara and Galan for forgiveness, in spite the fact that he was 10 when the killings took place, and had nothing to do with them. Further, as of October 28, 2008, JPE and the sons of Galan and Lara had a meeting, where they finally reconciled.

During those days, JPE had also set a private meeting with Rodrigo Lara Jr. (RL). The conversation they had goes as follows:

“JPE:

It is very difficult to delink these issues. There are family names in between, there are families, loved ones; the terrible death of your father… and, in the end, all of us are orphans.[9] We cannot continue with this trend of hatred, or we will always live in the mud.

RL:

The past is hard, but the important thing is to look forward. You are man of peace, you are a good man; I am a good man, I am a man of peace… So, let’s look forward.” (My translation)

After the interlocutors stopped talking they embraced each other. The episode is absolutely touching. Making some remarks on this encounter, RL later said:

“After so much time that the fact occurred (meaning the killings), it (the embrace) is to send a message of reconciliation in a country where there is so much violence, orphans, and widows, because it is necessary to put an end to the cycle of violence”.[10] (My translation)

When this news was released by the press, the whole country felt some kind of relief (or that’s what it seemed). It was as if the final harmonizing notes of Tristan und Isolde had been played. It was like solving some non resolved tension that had been there for years. But what happened not only had a symbolic value for the majority of Colombians; rather it first and foremost had a real value for the Victims of Escobar, and particularly, for Lara and Galan families.

We (Colombians), and them (Lara, Galan, and Escobar family) felt that something that was indeed indispensable had finally been done. We felt that JPE had done the right thing. The odd thing is that in some way, what he did could be seen as undertaking his father’s guilt. At least, that is what it seems to be in the letter he wrote to Lara and Galan families. The letter reads as follows:

“How do you write to a family to which your father caused so much harm? What can be said to some youths of your same age that are so profoundly hurt? How to begin a conversation with somebody that carries inside a pain that is so legitimate? Apart from asking them for forgiveness in the name of your father, and even knowing that you are in the ignominy (SIC), is that enough? How can you approach someone from this place? How can you ask for forgiveness without offending?”[11] (My translation)

But, JPE was required to do that? If he did not do it could we have thought that he was blameworthy for something? And if he was not required to do it, then why did he do it? The explanation that JPE made recently seems entirely compatible with Enoch’s intuition (the intuition that in certain cases we ought to Y, even though we did not Φ, or that Φ is not a blameworthy action or omission, in principle).

But Escobar’s letter gives us a hint of why Enoch is incorrect. Escobar’s real duty was not to undertake the responsibility for his father’s actions, for which he had no fault, but to C because of Q, given the particular and somehow arbitrary circumstances in which (bad) luck placed him (Q).  He had a duty to C (ask for forgiveness and show concern as a means to reconciliation) in order to play the final chord of Tristan und Isolde of the dramatic episode of Colombian violence here portrayed.

The letter cited above, continues like this:

“How is it possible to (…) look at the eyes of the sons of the leaders that promised to make your own country to progress? How can one live like this? What allow us to find solace each day as to be able to get up and keep moving forward? PEACE. The peace that I search every day within me in order to be able to sleep, in order to be able to dream with the sons that I haven’t had yet with my beloved wife, and fight for building the world that I want them to find when God allows them to come. I don’t want for my children a country bathed in blood. (…) My only reason to be here is to help to find peace, to help to build it.”[12] (My translation)

But it was not only the peace of the country what JPE was looking for; it was his interior peace as well. He had to do it. He felt he ought to do it. His main concern was reconciliation. He had that duty, because it was the only way to live at peace with what had happened. And what triggered his duty was not his own conduct but simply an unfortunate situation which by bad luck placed him in a horrible situation.

However, JPE didn’t have to undertake responsibility – and as a matter of fact, didn’t really undertake responsibility – for what his father did. He simply couldn’t do that. But we did expect him to show Concern for the Victims of his father as a necessary means for reconciliation, as he precisely did.

Now, that duty to show Concern evinces the lack of necessity of moral luck. His duty, thus, is a duty created by the need of reconciliation, which was triggered by his father’s actions. Even though the duty comes from the need of reconciliation, and from the particular conditions in which luck had placed him, not from his father’s wrongdoings in themselves, the fact that he is obliged to C, implies that the blameworthiness for Not-C is a consequence of his own action, and nobody else’s.

The Duty to Show Concern – Second Part

Let’s try to resume what we have said or tried to say till now. Should Escobar’s son take responsibility for every action his father did? Should he feel guilty? Responsible? Blameworthy? Should he ask forgiveness to all the victims? I have argued that he should not (and could not, even if he wanted to) undertake responsibility for what his father did.

JPE couldn’t live his life if that were the case. He couldn’t stop asking for forgiveness, but, as we have said, that would not be possible, anyway. We nevertheless feel that when he asked forgiveness to the Victims he did the right thing, he resolved some odd tension that had been for a long time in the air. But we must not get confused. His asking for forgiveness cannot be taken literally, as I explained above. The relevance of what he did is the meaning that it had for achieving reconciliation…

That is precisely what solves the tension. That is the something we have been looking for: the duty to reconcile. Now, why is he obliged to search reconciliation?

This is not an easy question. My guess is that praiseworthiness or blameworthiness are not, after all, only a matter of being accountable for ones owns actions. When we occupy a position in society from where we can become relevant agents that may contribute to solve tensions, we ought to contribute to solve them. It is our duty, a moral and societal duty. The relevant question here would be, Why? Well, because as human beings we are expected to care for each other, to show concern, to worry. And when we are placed in a position that allows us to do that, we should do it. That is one of the pillars of morality: caring for each other.

I find this conclusion paradoxical: I think I succeed in providing a persuasive argument in favor of the lack of need of moral luck to explain cases as the one presented above. But the reason that I have to use in order to answer the Why question of the last pages seems contradictory with all what I have said before. It doesn’t seem logical to argue that moral luck is unnecessary in order to explain the abovementioned cases because a collective sense of morality imposes certain duties on us simply because fate placed us in the wrong context.

I don’t know at this point how to solve this paradox, but I will certainly try to discover in the future the flaws of my reasoning and try to provide a good solution to the puzzle.

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[1] By Victim I mean the actual victim of the harm, its family members, or other persons or parties affected.

[2] http://www.moralluck.org/

[3] My guess is that the consequence is the birth a situation in which X should perform a (universal) duty to contribute to Reconciliation, where X is obliged to that Reconciliation simply because he can do it, and whereas social moral norms expect that moral agents engage in acts of reconciliation for the sake of social harmony.

[4] This is, moral luck.

[5] For a better understanding of what I mean please take a look at the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLoHcB8A63M. In minute 5:30 the hearer can be easily consumed by anguish. Only the final harmony, at the end of the act gives him release.

[6] Enoch, David. Being Responsible, Taking Responsibility, and Penumbral Agency. Unedited.

[7] By Relevant Role I do not necessarily mean that X was engaged in Φ. It can be the case that X is simply some sort of unfortunate spectator with some link to the whole situation.

[8] The Medellin Cartel was one of the two biggest drug trafficking cartels in Colombia during the 1980s. During those years Pablo Escobar Gaviria became one of the richest men in the world. Forbes magazine listed him as the seventh richest person on earth in 1989.

[9] “JPE: Es muy difícil desligar….todas estas cuestiones. Hay apellidos de por medio, hay familias, hay seres queridos. Está la terrible muerte de tu padre… y finalmente estamos todos huérfanos… No podemos seguir esta ola de rencor porque sino vamos a seguir en la mierda.

RL: El pasado es duro, pero lo importante es que miremos para adelante. Usted es un hombre de paz, usted es un hombre bueno. Yo soy un hombre bueno, yo soy un hombre de paz, entonces para adelante.”

[10] http://www.nacion.com/ln_ee/2009/octubre/14/mundo2123498.html

[11] “¿Cómo le escribes a una familia a la que tu padre le causó tanto daño? ¿Qué les dices a unos jóvenes de tu misma edad y profundamente dolidos al respecto? ¿Cómo empezarías una conversación con alguien que lleva adentro un dolor tan legítimo?  ¿Además de pedirles perdón en nombre de tu padre y aún sabiéndote en la ignominia, es eso acaso realmente suficiente? ¿Cómo puedes acercarte a alguien desde este lugar? ¿Cómo puedes aún pedir perdón sin ofender?”

[12] “¿Cómo es posible (…) mirar a los ojos de los hijos de unos líderes que prometían sacar adelante a tu propio país? ¿Cómo puedes vivir así? ¿Qué te sirve de verdadero consuelo cada día como para levantarte y seguir? LA PAZ. La paz que busco cada día dentro de mí para poder dormir, para poder pensar en los hijos que aún no he tenido con mi adorada esposa y luchar por el mundo que quiero que encuentren cuando finalmente Dios les permita llegar. No quiero para mis hijos un país más ensangrentado aún. (…)No estoy acá sino para buscar la paz, para ayudar a construirla.”