道德运气

康德主义者认为,道德只跟动机相关,不受运气影响。威廉斯以未尽基于真实历史事实的高更和小说人物安娜为例展开讨论。高更这位画家为了自己的艺术追求,背逆、冲撞了社会的道德要求。如果他最后成功了,他将能为自己提供理性辩护,失败了则不能。而最初,没谁(包括他自己)知道他的追求是否结出正果——这有一部分依赖于运气。威廉斯对这一阐论中的几个关键概念做出辨析,运气(指的不是意外受伤之类,而是内在于其计划的运气),成功(不是功效主义意义上的,而是指他最终成为他曾希望会是的那个人),辩护(理性辩护可以回溯性的,且不一定能为所有人接受)。他尤其详细地阐发了行为者憾恨的概念。本文的结论是:道德并不免受运气影响。

Moral Luck

Kantians think that motive alone counts in morality,and morality is immune to luck.Williams discusses this idea in light of the stories of two figures:Gauguin,a historicjal one,but not necessarily true to life,and Anna,a fictional character.For his artistic aspirations,painter Gauguin goes against and comes into conflict with the moral claims of the society.If he succeeds in the end,he will be able to provide rational justification for himself,and if he fails,he will not.Whether his pursuit will produce the wanted outcomes or not,cannot be foreseen by anyone,including himself,for that is partly subject to luck.Williams examines several central concepts in this line of thinking;luck(not luck of being accidentally hurl or not,but luck intrinsic to the project),success(not in the utilitarian sense,but in the sense that he eventually becomes the man he wanted to be),justification(rational justification might be retrospective,and might not be accepted by everyone).And he particularly looks into the concept of‘agent-regret’at length.The conclusion of the paper is:morality is not immune to luck.