Are We Morally Responsible for Who We Become? Chenoa Delaguna
If you ask most people whether we’re responsible for who we become, the answer feels obvious: yes. All of us make choices, we form habits, and over time we mold our own character. That’s the foundation of how we judge others, and ourselves.
But philosophy complicates this. Thinkers like Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams argue that a huge part of who we become depends on factors that are completely outside of our control. They call this moral luck, and once you understand it, it’s hard to ignore.
Here's a quick little intro to the concept of moral luck → Moral Luck (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
So the question becomes even more unsettling: If luck shapes so much of who we are, how can we still be morally responsible?
The Problem: Control vs. Responsibility
A basic idea behind moral responsibility is something philosophers call the Control Principle: we should only be judged for what is under our control.
At first, it seems reasonable. It wouldn’t make sense to blame someone for something that they had no control over. But in real life, we constantly do exactly that.
Imagine two drivers who both run a red light. One hits a pedestrian; the other doesn’t. We judge the first driver way more harshly, even though the difference was just bad luck. This is what Nagel calls resultant luck.
Crash Course on Philosophy: https://youtu.be/DpDSPVv8lUE?si=FA7vvi5q99h3Sym7
And that’s just one type. According to Nagel, luck shows up everywhere:
Resultant luck: how things turn out
Circumstantial luck: the situations you’re placed in
Constitutive luck: your personality and traits
Causal luck: the chain of events that led to your choices
Once you start thinking this way, it becomes clear that who we become is deeply shaped by things that we never chose. Things like our upbringing, our environment, and even our brain chemistry.
So why do we still feel justified judging people?
How Luck Shapes Who We Become
Think about the factors that influence a person’s life:
Family environment and early childhood
Socioeconomic status and education
Exposure to trauma, addiction, or instability
Cultural expectations and social pressures
Random opportunities (or lack of them)
These aren’t small details. They shape not just what options we have, but what we even see as possible.
For example, someone that was raised in a stable, supportive household may develop confidence and long-term thinking. Someone else, raised in chaos or poverty, may develop survival instincts that lead to very different choices. It’s not just that their outcomes differ. Their character develops differently.
This is what Nagel calls constitutive luck: you didn’t choose the kind of person you started out as.
And if you didn’t choose your starting point, how much credit—or blame—can you really take for where you end up?
But Responsibility Still Feels Real?
Even with all of this, it’s hard to give up the idea of responsibility.
We still praise people for perseverance. We still blame people for cruelty. Our entire moral and legal systems depend on the idea that people are held accountable for their actions.
This creates a philosophical tension:
On one hand, luck seems to undermine responsibility.
On the other, responsibility feels necessary and unavoidable.
Nagel’s conclusion is kind of uncomfortable: this tension can’t be fully resolved.
Four Ways Philosophers Respond
Different philosophers try to deal with this problem in different ways.
1. Focus on Intentions (Kant’s View)
Immanuel Kant argues that morality isn’t about outcomes.It’s about intentions. What matters is whether you tried to do the right thing.
This view protects moral responsibility from luck. Even if the world is unfair, you can still act from a good will.
Learn more: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-moral/
Strength: It preserves fairness.
Weakness: It ignores how much our intentions themselves are shaped by luck.
2. Accept the Paradox (Nagel & Williams)
Nagel and Williams take a more tragic approach: moral luck is real, and it does affect how we judge people, but we can’t stop making those judgments.
So we live with a contradiction: we hold people responsible, even though we know their control is limited.
3. Responsibility as a Social Practice
P. F. Strawson shifts the focus. He argues that responsibility isn’t about abstract control.It’s about human relationships.
We all naturally feel resentment, gratitude, guilt, and forgiveness. These “reactive attitudes” are what make moral life possible.
In other words, we hold people responsible because that’s how society functions, not because we’ve solved the philosophical problem.
4. Deny True Responsibility
Galen Strawson goes even further: if you didn’t create yourself, you can’t be ultimately responsible for anything.
You didn’t choose your genes, your upbringing, or your personality. So you can’t take full credit, or blame, for who you became.
My View: Limited Responsibility
I think the most reasonable position is a middle ground:
We are partly responsible for who we become, BUT that responsibility is limited by luck.
Here’s why:
Luck shapes our starting point. We don’t get to choose our circumstances or our basic traits.
But we still make choices within those limits. Even if those choices are influenced by luck, they still reflect something about us.
So responsibility exists, but it should be kind of tempered with humility.
This means that we shouldn’t completely excuse harmful behavior, but we also shouldn’t judge people as if they had complete control over their lives.
Intentions vs. Outcomes
Is it more reasonable to judge people by their intentions (like Kant) or their outcomes?
In theory, I think intentions seem fairer. But in practice, outcomes matter way too much to ignore. If someone causes serious harm,EVEN ACCIDENTALLY,it changes how we see them.
This is a really interesting legal perspective: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/mens_rea
I think a balanced view makes more sense: intentions should matter most, but outcomes can’t be ignored. They reveal the real-world impact of our actions, which is morally significant.
Should the Justice System Consider Moral Luck?
Should the justice system take moral luck into account?
In some ways, it actually already does. Courts consider factors like:
Background and upbringing
Mental health
Intent versus accident
But it’s inconsistent. Two people can commit similar actions and receive very different punishments depending on outcomes, just like the drivers example.
I think the justice system should take moral luck more seriously, especially when it comes to sentencing. Recognizing the role of luck could lead to a system that is less focused on blame and more focused on rehabilitation.
Why This Matters
This affects how we see real people.
Do we judge people in poverty as “lazy,” or do we recognize structural disadvantages?
Do we treat addiction as a moral failure, or as something shaped by circumstances and biology?
Do we view success as entirely self-made, or partly the result of luck?
Understanding moral luck doesn’t mean completely abandoning responsibility. It means rethinking how harshly we judge others and how much compassion we allow.
Final Thought
We like to believe we are fully in control of who we become. It’s comforting, it makes success feel earned and failure feel avoidable.
But philosophy forces us to confront a harder truth: our lives are shaped by a mix of choice and chance.
We are responsible,but not entirely. And recognizing that might not weaken morality. It might actually make it more humane.
Very thoughtful discussion.
ReplyDeleteBest thing I've read lately on this topic, that you might find instructive: Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness, by Kathryn Paige Harden. "As one of the world's leading scientists examining how our DNA shapes differences in temperament, temptation and behaviour, Harden has seen first-hand how we - in public and in our most private relationships - continue to struggle with the ancient tensions between nature and nurture, freedom and constraint, the desire to punish and the longing to forgive.
In Original Sin, she weaves together insights from her own experience as a daughter, mother, wife and scientist with cutting-edge research in genetics and psychology to grapple with some of the most important questions in modern How do we take responsibility for the people we become, knowing how we are shaped by both biology and experience? How should we respond when people hurt each other - or themselves? And has science made guilt obsolete?
Navigating the psychological and biological terrain of addiction, antisocial behaviour and violence, Harden confronts the discomforting ways science unsettles our understanding of wrongdoing and choice. In doing so she asks us not to absolve, but to reckon differently with notions of fairness and blame. A revelatory inquiry into the uneasy space where human behaviour meets inherited biology, Original Sin challenges us to imagine a more humane vision of accountability - for ourselves and for one another."