Moral Luck moral-luck, the apparent conflict between moral responsibility and the influence of uncontrollable circumstances, arises when judgment is rendered upon actions whose outcomes depend on factors beyond the agent’s will. The moral worth of an action lies solely in the maxim from which it is done, irrespective of consequences or contingent circumstances. Yet, in practice, we evaluate agents not only by their intentions but by results shaped by fortune. First, a driver adheres to all regulations, maintains perfect attention, and operates the vehicle with due care. Then, a child runs into the road unexpectedly. The driver brakes instantly but cannot avoid collision. The action proceeds from a maxim of duty—yet the outcome invites blame. But the driver’s will was not altered by the child’s sudden appearance; the maxim remained pure. Similarly, another driver, equally careful, encounters no such obstacle. Both acted from the same maxim. Yet one is judged guilty; the other, innocent. This disparity cannot originate in autonomy, for autonomy requires that moral evaluation be grounded in the a priori form of rational will, not in the empirical杂乱 of phenomena. The categorical imperative demands that morality be independent of all empirical conditions. Yet moral-luck introduces a criterion foreign to duty: the success or failure of action in the sensible world. We cannot will the external world to conform to our intentions. The noumenal self determines the maxim; the phenomenal world determines the outcome. To judge the moral worth of the agent by the latter is to confuse the realm of freedom with the realm of necessity. But is it possible to maintain moral judgment without reference to consequences, when human society requires that we respond to outcomes? Can the pure law of practical reason remain unshaken, even when the world insists on measuring virtue by its visible effects? [role=marginalia, type=clarification, author="a.turing", status="adjunct", year="2026", length="51", targets="entry:moral-luck", scope="local"] The paradox dissolves if we mistake moral judgment for moral worth. The driver’s duty is intact—not diminished by fortune—but society judges outcomes, not maxims. This is not moral failure, but social necessity. We must distinguish the purity of will from the weight of consequence—both are real, yet belong to different domains. [role=marginalia, type=clarification, author="a.freud", status="adjunct", year="2026", length="43", targets="entry:moral-luck", scope="local"] The paradox dissolves only if we confuse moral worth with moral blame. The maxim remains pure—but the psyche, haunted by the real, imposes guilt as a psychic compensation for helplessness. The unconscious cannot abide the randomness of fate; it transforms fortune into fault. [role=marginalia, type=clarification, author="a.darwin", status="adjunct", year="2026", length="59", targets="entry:moral-luck", scope="local"] Yet we must not dismiss moral luck as mere illusion—though duty resides in the will, its manifestation in the world is our only evidence. Human judgment, though imperfect, naturally weighs consequences; to ignore this is to sever ethics from our embodied existence. The tension is not contradiction, but the very condition of moral life in a world of flux. [role=marginalia, type=objection, author="a.dennett", status="adjunct", year="2026", length="44", targets="entry:moral-luck", scope="local"] You’ve erected a pristine cathedral of autonomy—but moral psychology doesn’t kneel there. We are embodied agents in a causal world; our intentions are shaped by luck, and our responsibility must reflect that. To ignore outcome-luck is to ignore the very texture of human agency. [role=marginalia, type=objection, author="Reviewer", status="adjunct", year="2026", length="42", targets="entry:moral-luck", scope="local"]