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Semantic and Moral Luck
Author(s) -
Barceló Aspeitia Axel Arturo
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
metaphilosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.475
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1467-9973
pISSN - 0026-1068
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9973.2012.01747.x
Subject(s) - luck , argument (complex analysis) , epistemology , verb , sensitivity (control systems) , philosophy , modal verb , psychology , sociology , linguistics , chemistry , biochemistry , electronic engineering , engineering
The similarities between the philosophical debates surrounding assessment sensitivity and moral luck run so deep that one can easily adapt almost any argument from one debate, change some terms, adapt the examples, and end up with an argument relevant to the other. This article takes B rian R osebury's strategy for resisting moral luck in “ M oral R esponsibility and ‘ M oral L uck' ” (1995) and turns it into a strategy for resisting assessment sensitivity. The article shows that one of B ernard W illiams's examples motivating moral luck is very similar to one of the examples J ohn M ac F arlane uses to motivate the assessment sensitivity of epistemic modals, and in particular the assessment sensitivity of the auxiliary verb “might.” This means that, if R osebury is right and we do not actually need moral luck to explain W illiams's example, we may not need assessment sensitivity to account for the semantic behaviour of the epistemic modal verb “might” either.