Resultant Moral Luck and Criminal Law

Moral luck, which is a new concept in moral philosophy, challenges our ordinary moral evaluation. According to human's moral intuition, people are only evaluated for their controllable behaviors. However, while people have no control over results of their behaviors, results are effective in our moral judgments. This issue, in its turn, raises an essential question in criminal law: are people responsible for their behaviors in cases they have no control over the results of their behaviors? While theorists who agree with moral resultant luck are trying to theorize the existing and prominent practices in penal codes, others who oppose this idea attempt to neutralize the role of results in criminal responsibility. As a result, they believe that criminal legal systems should impose equal punishment on offenders who commit the same conducts regardless of different results as far as they simply stem from moral luck. Consequently, if the proponents' arguments in favor of moral resultant luck are persuasive, the prominent approach in criminal law would be established. On the other hand, if the opponents' opinions against moral resultant luck are stronger, then significant changes would happen in penal code and criminal titles.