Moral Luck: Crash Course Philosophy #39 

"I didn't attack him, officer. He simply ran into my coconut."

You shouldn't throw coconuts, throw chop chom choms, it's safer

Do some stuff on nihilism, but I don't care if you don't.

I think that child's parents are a bit to blame, too. Running in the road in the middle of the night? Come on, parents.

this dilemma reminded me of a high school friend who found himself in a similar situation back when we were still students. he was involved in a car accident where he killed two cyclists. the thing is the external factors were so many that it was almost unavoidable. the accident happened a 5 am when he was coming home from a night out. if he was intoxicated within the legal limit isn't clear, as the police failed to give him a alcohol test on site and that only occurred in the hospital hours later. the location where it happened was also very prone to accidents. just a few days before there had been another accident there and the road had been covered in oil. city hall instead of cleaning it up, decided to cover it up with sand for the time being. so there was sand and oil on the road. it was also a curved tunnel with no light what so ever. and the cyclists seemed to have decided to stop right on top of the curve at five am, in a dark tunnel. so when my friend came around the curve, he only saw the cyclists right when he was on top of them. having hit the breaks, the floor was covered in sand and oil, car lost control and ran over the cyclists. this of course went to court, but he was found not guilty because of all those external factors. i think his license was revoked but he got some serious emotional trauma because of what happened.

This is my favourite episode so far. I saw the title and thought, 'oh, moral luck - the two drunk drivers...' but it was well expanded into other ideas. I'm no expert on philosophy, so it was nice to see a concept that I have some understanding of stretched out beyond what I have read before. THX.

The only reason you blame the lucky one less is because you cannot prove he would have killed a child had he encountered one. Otherwise, of course they are equally immoral.

I am so happy you guys keep making these. It's encouraging to see knowledge and curiosity being promoted in a meaningful way.

My favorite crash course series! :D

Don't you love that over 4,000 people saw this video, and decided that they wanted to use their time to learn about Philosophy?

This is why risk management exists. Multiply all potential consequences by their probability of it happening.

The idea of "moral luck" reminds me of the movie "in Bruges"

Both are equally blameworthy! If two persons want to murder someone and one succeeds while the other fails, both should be punished equally because they both had the same intention. That's how I always thought.

Wait, so is "ought Implies can" - With great power, comes great responsibility?

As Maynard James Keenan said, "Consequences dictate my course of action and it doesn't matter what's right. It's only wrong if you get caught."

I've never been more excited for a RU-vid video then the next upcoming crash course on Justice

I instantly said both of them were equally blame worthy

Hello, blame the child. Duh.

Blame only matters as a mean to influence the future(immediate and far). The cause and effect blame assignment/qualification should be prescribed in such a way that the future creates less bad sentient experiences. The only Value that lies in the past, is in that we can Learn from it.

Watched this right after the social psychology episodes on social thinking and influence. Great cross course linking!

holy f****** s*** I've never been more excited for RU-vid video then the upcoming Justice on Crash Course

chomchom republic was a nice touch, thoughtbubble.

For those who don't like religious discussions in the comment section, I apologize in advance. This video also provides one of the strongest argument against the concept of original sin that we find in the Abrahamic religions. According to the story of genesis, Adam and Eve were supposedly made perfect yet without knowledge of good and evil. Only after they ate from the fruit of the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:17) did they gain knowledge of what is good and evil. This is further emphasized by Genesis 3:5, where the talking snake (who is not Satan btw) tells Eve that _your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil._ Btw, god was taking a casual stroll around the garden of Eden for some reason (Genesis 3:8). In other words, Adam and Eve had the moral reasoning of an infant and yet they were expected to make a moral conclusion regarding the fruit of the tree of knowledge. If *ought* implies that you *can*, then you can apply this same reasoning to the concept of original sin. Adam and Eve were incapable of making moral evaluations and thus shouldn't have been expected to do so.

This video left me with a great sense of tragedy. Being human is hard, and it's just not fair.

It was the parent's fault what was a child doing in the middle of the street at night?

My brain never fails to explode when watching these episodes.

I think if a person does wrong they should be judged accordingly, no matter if they cause harm or not.

Why is it this episode that stumped me more than any other

OMG, I just got a vision of Hank in grey hair, still doing these videos...

Taken to the extreme, you can conclude that no one is responsible for anything they do, or everyone is responsible for everything they do. There is no moral gray area in a purely logical sense. Because if everything you are is shaped by things out fo your control, free will is non-existent. However, we are not purely logical creatures. We feel as if we are in control, so it stands to reason that we act like we are as well. Just something to add onto the video.

I love how your subjects invoke thoughts and discussions in our minds which are ignored in this shallow life. Observing 99.99% of the humans, I feel they are still basically primitive animals looking for food, reproduction, shelter and power status. Only philosophers are actually aware of the their existence and looking for a meaning in this life. I don't think any philosophy reaches the real truth and give the absolute right answer. But the search itself is what makes humans special. Thank you for this beautiful series 💕

Virtue theory seems to be wholly grounded in wrong doing vs doing good, because what you do exposes and affects who you are as a person, no matter the results. Bad people sometimes exist harmlessly. However when harm is done, society is obligated to deliver justice to the wronged party, which is where blame comes into play.

Both are guilty.... but what asstown parent lets their kid out at 11:13 pm?!?!?!?!?!

This reminds me of determinism and how moral theories like Kant's categorical imperative necessarily assume free will. If how you choose to act is shaped by your personality and your personality is shaped by external factors which you can't be blamed for, do ethics and legislation even make sense?

I'm just here to say 82% on my Philosophy final, thank you Crash Course

Loved this! And can follow easily now that you've e slowed down your talking speed :-). Thanks for doing these videos!

Whoever captioned the video, please, take the time to have a maximum of two lines at once on the screen x)

My opinion: if B is punished with a bigger sanction than A, so I think we can conclude that the punishment hasn't just the function to "rehabilitate" the criminal, but also to take vengence. On the other hand, if the sanctions are equal, so no vengence, and the function is just and always to "rehabilitate" the person (i.e. modify his/her valuations of actions)

Then both are blamed because both did wrong of DUI but A got lucky for not harming

Amazing ! Before this I had hardly given a thought to the differnce bw harm & wrongdoing

public health strives to save lives all the time, and regularly fails. I'm sure the majority of us praise them for the intention to good, irrelevant of their failures

The alternative answer is this is why our legal system does not consider all actions as collectively being punished but breaks them down into the individual actions which each are punished semi-independently. For example, both A and B are guilty of driving while under the influence and as such both are equally to blame for it. But B would also be charged with manslaughter (or a lower degree of murder) because of what also took place while they were driving. Now, had B been sober at the time they might not have been charged with anything as it might have been deemed to be entirely out of their control. They were being responsible and events beyond their control lead to an accident they couldn't stop. No charge. But B wasn't sober and wasn't doing what society agrees is a responsible act and as such to say they are without blame is incorrect. And it's all down to that part you said "because of their impairment their reaction time was slowed". It's arguable that a sober individual could have taken action to avoid hitting the child and therefore their earlier decision to drink and drive assigns them blame, at least in part. That's also why I said actions, in a legal context, are only partially viewed independently as they can be causally linked. And this is kind of the issue I have with a lot of thought experiment philosophy. The pretending that there aren't simple, logical solutions to the problem when, in this case for sure, there is.

Brain.exe has stopped working JK I love it as always, but I need to re-watch it twice ,so many information in so little time 😅

Your way of delivering such complicated thoughts is just awesome! I love it! Big fan here :) :) :) DFTBA

Moral agency. Harm and wrong doing. Moral Luck. 5:12 Different kinds of luck. Constitutive luck, Circumstantial luck, SS antecedent luck, Consequent circumstances. If out of our control does it make ant sense to praise or blame. Is our Nature and Nurture under our control. 7:14 Praise and Blame? 8:16 Praise heroes to encourage hereoism. Villify cowardice to discourage cowardice. Punish people for bad behavior or try Rehabilitate them. What punishment is best to use?

anyone else catch the chomchom republic?

Chomchom republic lmaoooo the persistence is amazing

I think that the consequences for A and B should be the same. the child, really shouldn't change anything. Pick a standard, if you ask me

chom chom republic was a nice touch lol

Drawing on the determinism episode, no element of a person's life was ever really in their control. Every circumstance a person finds themself in is due to luck. Therefore, assigning responsibility to a person's actions is as meaningless as assigning responsibility to a planet for its orbit.

OK, here's an idea for the CrashCourse people: CrashCourse World Religions. I think it would be great to have a comparative look at the way the world's hard-and-fast written (or otherwise well-established) doctrines approach these same questions of morality and the nature of existence. With all the prejudice in the world, it would be great to be able to examine the things these various traditions actually teach with the perspective we gained from the Philosophy series. Just a thought. :)

Drinking alcohol impairs judgement, so were you really in "control" when you decided to drive? I think substance abuse, that introduces us to situations we would not agree to be in if we were sober, are definitely one of the dodgier areas in determining agency.

Ignorance truly is bliss in this particular Flash Philosophy. Consider it this way... You are a patron of a restaurant and you're one of the unlucky few chosen by that day's morally dubious kitchen crew to have a fat loogie spat into your burger. You never know, you never taste it, you never experience any physical abnormalities such as getting sick from the germs introduced, in the end you never experience the harm. However, the harm was in fact done. You could not consciously experience it since you didn't know it occurred, however you'd have unwittingly experienced it. Had you found out your burger was spat into, you would then feel the harm immediately, just as would the man whose picture was taken by the morally dubious creepers at the ChomChom Republic. Not all harm may be the result of wrongdoing, but it's likely the case that all wrongdoing will cause harm, even if not consciously experienced by those wronged. If knowing it happened results in harm, then it was harmful from the getgo.

Excellent video, Hank and the Crash Course crew! ...Had Hank more time in this vid, it would have been interesting to hear him consider what happens to the social worth of praise or blame with the second option (beginning @ 7:38). If their function is merely to serve as a deterrent or reward, rather than serve as part of a moral judgment itself, getting praised or blamed for something starts to look like more like sheep herding than genuine responsibility. If praise or blame are more about promoting social harmony rather than receiving one's just desserts for specific actions, doesn't this diminish the meaning of these concepts for either proponents or recipients of them? (Imagine discovering that the praise or blame you received for your actions is really more about proper herd functioning than forming your character. How does that make you feel about the praise and blame you receive henceforth? I suspect it damages one's motivation either way.)

Driver A can only be blamed for taking the risk of driving intoxicated, yet driver B can also be blamed for running over a child.

Reputational harm doesn't require your knowledge of it happening.

My brain is dribbling out my ears after trying to process this video

I never thought that B was more blameworthy than A... Am I a phsycopath? 0_o

I thought it was the American History course, but I think this one is by far the best.

It was the child's fault for coming in front of a moving car. Kids be stupid these days.

You guys should do videos on math like calculus data management and functions.

I don't understand how anyone could that A should not be blamed for drunk driving.

chom chom opportunity missed: the example could have been about two identical people eating identical chom choms, then throwing the peels on the same section of floor, but chom chom peel 'a' is picked up by a janitor and peel 'b' is slipped on by a child.

4:35 does this mean pizzajohn stuff is available in malls?

"Ought implies can" is what Draco's Code ignored for sociological reasons. According to Draco, if you -- or a coconut tree -- cause a death you have to die (or the tree has to be cut down) not because you (or the tree) are morally responsible, but because if the State doesn't see to this, the victim's family will seek justice on their own and there is no end to that sequence of revenge killings.

ChomchomRepublic!

Can you take the analogy to the next level and discuss what happens when we set up a society to praise/give benefits to those that choose not to do the correct thing? Especially when that praise/benefits come at the cost of those that choose to do the right thing.

You blame the kid for being stupid enough to run in the middle of a road with traffic on it.

No matter how deep you think, B is the only one to blame. His actions caused the result whereas A's actions did not. You can say had they been travelling at the same time and same speed and the same child jumped out. But, that's not what happened, and we can't tell the future.

A should be in trouble for leaving his life and the life of others up to chance, but B killed someone, and should get a harsher penalty.

A and B both deserve some punishment, because both made bad decisions. However, we can and should give more punishment to B than A, because even if we know they both made a terrible choice, we don't know for certain that A's choice would have left him unable to stop in time to save the kid. We might think it's highly likely, but we can't prove it. We CAN prove that B's choice left him unable to stop for the kid, so he gets full punishment.

"Chom Chom Republic" omg yes

I have seen a few people in these comments saying 'blame the parents', but I think that misses the point for a number of reasons. Most importantly it doesn't make any difference in the moral luck of the drunk driver. Driver A was lucky that the kids on his way home had responsible parents, driver B was unlucky that the parents on his way home weren't lucky. But it also opens up other questions. If you are a great parent, but someone taps you on the shoulder and you turn to look, and at the same moment your kid runs out into the road, should you be held responsible for the death of your child? In a similar situation, maybe there is a bad parent, but nobody talks to them because they are such a morally terrible person, so nobody taps that person on the shoulder because nobody wants to talk to them. And, therefore, they are not distracted in that moment and see their kid walking into the road. The parent then beats the kid with a belt to teach them not to walk into the road. The action of the first parent resulted in the death of their child, the action of the second parent resulted in their kid learning not to walk into the road. But is parent B really better morally than parent A?

I feel like this is such a harsh attack on utilitarianism. Kant's formulation stands up to this challenge much better.

So to backtrack a bit to that thought experiment with the burglar. If someone that is out to do wrong, and in this case cause harm to another person by stealing their stuff, unintentionally saves that person's life, does that mean he got morally lucky too?

Freaking love this Channel.

If you ask me, virtue ethics is the best answer for the entire video.

Or just lucky and general

How about dont get drunk and drive...seems pretty simple.

Hands down one of my favorite episodes of the philosophy series.

Yeah, I'm going to agree with a lot of the comments and say that both drivers are equally reprehensible in their actions, and both should be blamed terribly for their decision to endanger people.

Is wrongdoing necessarily connected to a perpetrator? For example, could it be that the coconut falling on your head is morally bad, even if nobody caused it. Similarly, perhaps a man who's circumstances influence him towards participating in the holocaust is not himself bad, only his actions. Food for thought. Also, if someone can be blamed for the possible consequences of their actions (such as drunk driving), how improbable does a consequence need to be for the person to still be blamed for it? After all, there is a tiny % chance that a driver kills not one but ten children because he was drunk that night. Should all drunk drivers be blamed for the potential deaths of ten children?

You're awesome Hank

Sometimes I cannot believe how much awesome this channel doesn't forget to be!

Is someone morally responsible, when he's blind to his faults? Some people are not just lacking empathy, but are simply unable to imagine to be in the victims position. Most wouldn't blame the cat for killing a bird, since it is her nature and thus the fault of her owner, but on the other side, I'm pretty confident that you'd want to bash the skull in of the guy that raped your daughter and seriously believes that she should feel honored to be picked by him, but if that guy is an extreme case of a narcissist, he might be unable to see his wrongdoing (in his delusion, he cannot imagine that an ordinary human could say no to him).

Yay new episode!

LMFAO Chom Chom Republic!

First?

Aren't A and B blameworthy to the full extent of the actual harm B did cause AND to the full extent of all additional potential harm A or B may have caused? That's certainly my interpretation. I'm curious to hear yours.

When the "flash" from Flash Philosophy happens, Hank gets a Bunny Ears treatment. 3:41

This is yet another reason our criminal justice system makes no sense. The guy who hit the child would get 20 years in prison. The other guy would get nothing. Yet they made the same choice. (And for people who say the second guy might have better swerving skills, your motor skills while drunk should also not be what separates 20 years in prison from zero. Justice is supposed to be about judging choices, not physical abilities). Our harsh punishments are defended by the idea that they teach "personal responsibility" by setting an example. But, people do not learn by negative examples, because they usually have far more examples in their lives of people who did the bad thing with no consequence (because no consequence happens far more often). And if they didn't have those examples, they probably wouldn't do the thing in the first place. Most people act the way people around them act, not by rationally considering abstract "examples" that are supposed to teach them moral rules. That is especially not how people likely to commit crimes think--they are more likely to be short-term oriented and worried about fitting in. So the only way to prevent this crime would be to prevent people from driving drunk, which would require a technological solution--automated cars or cars that require a breathalyzer test. Or a social solution, like treating alcohol addiction better, or education campaigns about the risks of drunk driving so it becomes less socially acceptable. Harsh punishment might make people feel like the world is an orderly place, but it doesn't actually "solve" the problem of crime. And there are millions of people in prison right now whose crimes amount to a stupid decision based on social norms combined with really bad luck, whereas millions more people are making the same stupid decision right now and nothing will come of it. Prison puts immense strain on families, drains state budgets, and damages the social fabric. That is a whole lot of harm we are causing on a very dubious premise.

if no one is harmed, how can an action be objectively wrong, given that the definition for right or wrong is wether or not someone was harmed.

The arguments or lecture presented has the underlying assumption of free will of choices, lest there wouldn't be a difference between causal and moral responsibility

i blame the child for not looking both ways!

bananas are chom choms

I've realized the problem with all these positions. They assume that you can have these nice and neat situations, where you can compare two options and know that there is only one factor between them. But this *never* happens in real life, so coming up with a moral framework that fits into the messy and full of limited information real world won't look like the kind of thing you derive from these kind of thought experiments.

"Next time we are going to talk about Justice!" THERE IS NO JUSTICE, ONLY ME. (Please work that into the next video somehow ^)

U saved my Paper!!

“HAHA! That guy got hit in the head with two coconuts!”

Blame for what specifically? A and B are equally blameworthy for being irresponsible for driving drunk. B is guilty of both drunk driving and killing the child. If caught, an external factor, then A would have been arrested for drunk driving.