#adding haterpost tag just to be safe

[qiu-yan]

one topic i've been interested in lately is the idea of moral luck.

let's start somewhere else. i was surprised to learn that the question of "do moral dilemmas exist" is actually debated upon in moral philosophy. broadly speaking, a "moral dilemma" is a situation in which the agent can only choose one of several mutually exclusive options, and yet the agent has moral reasons compelling them towards each option. some philosophers have argued that, given a sufficiently robust moral philosophy, a "genuine" moral dilemma cannot exist: the moral philosophy will organize the differing moral reasons for each course of action into a hierarchy, in which more important moral reasons override the others; thus, the moral philosophy will always be able to identify one or more correct courses of action.

based on my own analysis - if one takes a more moral-pluralistic point of view, though, this is no longer true. moral pluralism indicates the view that multiple different values can all be equally valuable and morally significant, even when they are contradictory. in this case, a moral reason may not be able to override another moral reason. in my opinion (which i am not sure if lines up with official ideas of moral pluralism), this entails the return of the moral dilemma. after all, if the agent can only choose one of several mutually-exclusive courses of action, and the agent has genuine moral reasons for each course of action, and these moral reasons also cannot override each other - then it seems the agent is doomed. no matter what the agent chooses to do, they will be violating some moral reason. they will be committing some moral wrongdoing.

the idea that someone is doomed to commit some moral wrongdoing is referred to as moral tragedy.

this is all kind of abstract, so let us consider a more concrete example. first, let's consider the trolley problem. from a deontological perspective, the perfect duty of not violating the categorical imperative by killing the 1 person comes before the imperfect duty of taking action to save 5 people from death; hence, the correct choice is to not pull the lever. from a utilitarian perspective, the outcome in which 5 people live and 1 person dies involves less harm than the outcome in which 1 person lives and 5 people die, so pulling the lever is the correct choice. however, from a more morally pluralistic point of view, both the choice of pulling the lever and not pulling the lever involve violating some moral duty. people have a moral duty to not kill people, and people also have a moral duty to not allow people to die through inaction. you can only either kill the 1 person to save the 5 people or allow the 5 people to die through inaction. no other choice exists. thus, no matter what choice you make, you will be violating one of those two moral duties; you are trapped in a moral tragedy.

now let's consider another example. suppose you are jiang cheng, and wei wuxian has just busted wen ning's wen remnants out of the jin labor camp at qiongqi pass. from a more morally pluralistic point of view, you are also caught in a moral tragedy: no matter what choice you make, you will be violating some moral duty.

if you choose not to stand by wei wuxian, then you are violating some of your moral duties. wei wuxian is your martial brother; you have a duty towards him. wen ning and wen qing helped you greatly in the past; by the virtue of reciprocity, you owe it to them to help them too. furthermore, as a human being, you have a moral duty to stand against the mistreatment of innocent people. choosing not to stand by wei wuxian entails violating all three of these moral duties.

however, if you choose to stand by wei wuxian, then you are also violating some of your moral duties. you are the leader of the yunmeng jiang sect, which is currently recovering from near-absolute annihilation and thus lacks the resources the other great sects have. as the leader of yunmeng jiang, you are its representative: thus, you standing by wei wuxian when he has alienated lanling jin means that you are making yunmeng jiang stand against lanling jin. and since the jin sect is tied to the other two great sects via the venerated triad, if yunmeng jiang stands against lanling jin, then the situation will become all three of the other great sects against your one weak recovering sect.

you are the leader of the people in yunmeng jiang. those people just fought a war for you. as their leader - or even simply as someone for whom these people bled and suffered - you owe it to them to put them first. as a leader you exist for your people. if you act in violation of what is best for your people's safety and happiness, if you actively choose to put them in danger, then you have broken the social contract by which they gave you authority. then you have failed your duty. and since choosing to stand by wei wuxian puts everyone under your protection in danger, choosing to stand by wei wuxian entails violating your moral duty as a leader.

so. no matter what choice you as jiang cheng make, you will be violating some moral duty. you will be committing some moral transgression. you are caught in a moral tragedy.

from a morally pluralistic point of view, any choice in a moral tragedy entails some moral wrongdoing. so what determines whether you end up in a moral tragedy or not?

luck.

it's commonly said that a person's moral character can be determined from the choices they've made in their life - judge a man by his actions and all that. in other words, we look at what moral violations he has committed, as well as what morally upstanding acts. and yet! if he's ended up in a moral tragedy before - then he had no choice but to commit a moral violation, because all of the available choices were moral violations! does that mean that a person's moral character is subject not just to his own choices, but to luck as well? whether or not you can be called a good person or a bad person is affected also by merely how lucky or unlucky you were?

i do not personally use the framework of "good person" vs "bad person" very often; the utilitarianism i favor cannot be used to judge entire moral characters. however, it certainly is the case that other people will judge an individual's entire moral character by the choices they've made. and yet, it seems that - again and again - the concept of moral luck is not considered.

who did not have moral luck? who ended up in a moral tragedy?

wei wuxian. jiang cheng. lan xichen. jin guangyao. nie mingjue. and many others.

who did have moral luck? who avoided all the moral tragedies?

lan wangji.