Moral Luck and Responsibility on Michael J.Zimmerman’s View

The present paper analyzes and evaluates Michael J. Zimmermann's view on the relationship between moral luck and moral responsibility. In moral philosophy, this relationship is considered from conceptual and subjective aspects. Conceptually, in moral luck, people’s moral judgments about each other are based on involuntary and chancy actions while the moral responsibility of these judgments are based on free actions. Moral luck, concerning its subject, faces a problem that involves old discussions about the conflict between determinism and free will and moral responsibility that goes beyond that problem. By accepting freedom as having volition and desire in action and initiating a difference between the degree and scope of moral responsibility, Zimmermann, a well-known philosopher, denies moral luck and defends moral responsibility. He also claims to have solved the problems of moral luck and moral responsibility. This paper, after exploring the meaning and relationship between responsibility and moral luck, explains Zimmerman's view on moral responsibility, freedom, and rejection of moral luck. Ultimately, an assessment of this view will show that, despite Zimmerman's innovations, his extremism in defending moral responsibility has made it difficult to accept his view.