Abstract

"Moral luck" is a problem because of human epistemic, manipulative and temporal incapacities. Since people cannot know with certainty their actions' consequences nor completely control the circumstances that affect their actions' outcomes, Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel ask how we can hold people responsible for their conduct. William asks what would prospectively or retrospectively justify a person's choices. Nagel wonders how we can draw a boundary between the "domain of moral responsibility" and the rest of the world for which a person is not responsible. Despite moral luck's theoretical insolubility, I argue that when we look to what we actually do in the ordinary conditions of moral judgment, i.e., in moral practices, we find that moral luck is a manageable but not a solvable problem. ;We find a response to moral luck in the epistemic, manipulative and temporal limits that create the problem. We manage moral luck by reducing luck where we can through prudence and trust. Prudence is the best combination of human epistemic and manipulative capacities. Trust can reduce the uncertainty of being a source or recipient of bad luck. The epistemic and manipulative limits of the prudent person are a rough outline of the domain of moral responsibility. Trust and prudence work together, as the prudent person is a standard for moral responsibility that we trust everyone to follow. The "reasonable person of ordinary prudence under same or similar circumstances" in Anglo-American tort law is an example of this standard. Prudence and trust cannot transcend epistemic and manipulative limits, and time also limits our ability to justify conclusively our actions and to outline completely the domain of moral responsibility. Prudence and trust can make moral judgment possible on a diminished level that rescues moral judgment from skepticism.