The Philosophy of Luck E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Metaphilosophy
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 535

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

This is the first volume of its kind to provide a curated collection of cutting-edge scholarship on the philosophy of luck

• Offers an in-depth examination of the concept of luck, which has often been overlooked in philosophical study
• Includes discussions of luck from a range of philosophical perspectives, including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, and cognitive science
• Examines the role of luck in core philosophical problems, such as free will
• Features work from the main philosophers writing on luck today

Leseprobe

METAPHILOSOPHY SERIES IN PHILOSOPHY

Series Editors: Armen T. Marsoobian and Eric Cavallero

The Philosophy of Interpretation, edited by Joseph Margolis and Tom Rockmore (2000)

Global Justice, edited by Thomas W. Pogge (2001)

Cyberphilosophy: The Intersection of Computing and Philosophy, edited by James H. Moor and Terrell Ward Bynum (2002)

Moral and Epistemic Virtues, edited by Michael Brady and Duncan Pritchard (2003)

The Range of Pragmatism and the Limits of Philosophy, edited by Richard Shusterman (2004)

The Philosophical Challenge of September 11, edited by Tom Rockmore, Joseph Margolis, and Armen T. Marsoobian (2005)

Global Institutions and Responsibilities: Achieving Global Justice, edited by Christian Barry and Thomas W. Pogge (2005)

Genocide's Aftermath: Responsibility and Repair, edited by Claudia Card and Armen T. Marsoobian (2007)

Stem Cell Research: The Ethical Issues, edited by Lori Gruen, Laura Gravel, and Peter Singer (2007)

Cognitive Disability and Its Challenge to Moral Philosophy, edited by Eva Feder Kittay and Licia Carlson (2010)

Virtue and Vice, Moral and Epistemic, edited by Heather Battaly (2010)

Global Democracy and Exclusion, edited by Ronald Tinnevelt and Helder De Schutter (2010)

Putting Information First: Luciano Floridi and the Philosophy of Information, edited by Patrick Allo (2011)

The Pursuit of Philosophy: Some Cambridge Perspectives, edited by Alexis Papazoglou (2012)

Philosophical Engineering: Toward a Philosophy of the Web, edited by Harry Halpin and Alexandre Monnin (2014)

The Philosophy of Luck, edited by Duncan Pritchard and Lee John Whittington (2015)

The Philosophy of Luck

Edited by

Duncan Pritchard and Lee John Whittington

This edition first published 2015

Chapters © 2014 Metaphilosophy LLC and John Wiley & Sons Ltd, except for “Luck as Risk and the Lack of Control Account of Luck” © 2015 Metaphilosophy LLC and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Book compilation © 2015 Metaphilosophy LLC and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

First published as Metaphilosophy volume 45, nos. 4–5 (October 2014), except for “Luck as Risk and the Lack of Control Account of Luck,” first published in Metaphilosophy volume 46, no. 1 (January 2015).

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CONTENTS

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

CHAPTER 1: LUCK AS RISK AND THE LACK OF CONTROL ACCOUNT OF LUCK

1. Two Senses of Risk

2. Event-Relative Risk: Modal and Probabilistic Interpretations

3. Event-Relative Risk: Modal or Probabilistic?

4. Agent-Relative Risk as Lack of Control

5. Four Combinations of Risks, Two Ways of Being Lucky (or Fortunate)

6. An Account of the Notion of Control

7. The Lack of Control Account of Luck and Its Counterexamples

8. Conclusions

References

Notes

CHAPTER 2: STROKES OF LUCK

1. Three Leading Theories of Luck

2. Counterexamples to the Leading Theories

3. Lucky Events and Strokes of Luck

4. The Strokes Account of Lucky Events: Further Support and Defense

5. Strokes of Luck: An Analysis and Some Important Implications

6. The Enriched Strokes Account of Lucky Events: Further Support and Defense

7. The Enriched Strokes Account and the Counterexamples to the Leading Theories

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

CHAPTER 3: LUCK ATTRIBUTIONS AND COGNITIVE BIAS

1. Introduction

2. Method

3. Results

4. Discussion

5. Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

CHAPTER 4: FRANKFURT IN FAKE BARN COUNTRY

1.

2

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

CHAPTER 5: LUCK AND FREE WILL

1. Some Background

2. Luck and Agent Causation

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

CHAPTER 6: YOU MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK

1. Luck Properly Under Control

2. Lucky Locutions

3. “Intervening” and “Environmental” Luck

4. Moving Forward

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

CHAPTER 7: SUBJECT-INVOLVING LUCK

1. Introduction

2. Subject-Relative Luck Versus Subject-Involving Luck

3. Epistemic Luck and Moral Luck Are Instances of Subject-Involving Luck

4. Subject-Involving Luck and Lack of Control Accounts of Luck

5. Objections

6. Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

CHAPTER 8: THE MODAL ACCOUNT OF LUCK

1. Anti-Luck Epistemology and the Modal Account of Luck in Outline

2. Luck, Significance, and Subjectivity

3. Modality and Luck

4. Luck and Neighbouring Notions

5. The Modal Account of Luck and Its Rivals

6. Concluding Remarks

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

CHAPTER 9: THE MACHINATIONS OF LUCK

1. Luck's Partners: Fate and Fortune

2. Luck Is Statistical in Its Dependence on the Prevailing Context

3. Is Luck Objective or Subjective?

4. Luck Depends on What Follows

5. Can One Control Luck?

6. Can One Measure Luck?

7. Retrospect

8. Concluding Worries

Reference

Notes

CHAPTER 10: LUCK, KNOWLEDGE, AND “MERE” COINCIDENCE

1. Introduction

2. Having No Luck with “Luck”

3. Sunrise Cases

4. Mere Coincidence

5. Conclusion

References

Notes

CHAPTER 11: THE UNBEARABLE UNCERTAINTY PARADOX

1. Introduction

2. A Formal Analysis of the Unbearable Uncertainty Paradox

3. Heuristics, Biases, and Beyond

4. A Taxonomy of the UUP

5. The Phenomenology of the UUP

6. How Irrational Is the UUP?

7. Conclusion

Acknowledgments

References

Notes

CHAPTER 12: GETTING MORAL LUCK RIGHT

1. Introduction

2. What Is Moral Luck?

3. The Lack of Control and Modal Accounts of Luck

4. Modal Moral Luck

5. Problem 1: The Inclusivity Problem

6. An Action-Orientated Solution

7. Problem 2: The Significance Problem

8. Solution: Relativising the Significance Condition

References

Notes

INDEX

EULA

List of Tables

Chapter 3

Table 1

Table 2

Table 3

Table 4

Table 5

Chapter 11

Table 1

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Fernando Broncano-Berrocal is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Logic and Analytic Philosophy, KU Leuven. He recently completed his Ph.D. at the LOGOS Research Group in Analytic Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, where he wrote a thesis on how accounts of luck bear on accounts of epistemic luck and in turn on theories of knowledge such as safety-based accounts and virtue epistemology. He has published adapted parts of his thesis in Erkenntnis and Philosophia.

E. J. Coffman is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Tennessee. He works in epistemology and philosophy of action, and has recently published papers in Philosophical Issues, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophers' Imprint, Philosophical Studies, Synthese, Philosophical Explorations, and Journal of Philosophical Research. He is working on a book (to be published by Palgrave Macmillan) on the nature of luck and its bearing on the nature and scope of knowledge and free, accountable action.

Steven D. Hales is a professor of philosophy at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. He writes primarily in epistemology and metaphysics, and his books include This Is Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), Relativism and the Foundations of Philosophy (MIT, 2006), Nietzsche's Perspectivism (co-authored, Illinois University Press, 2000), and A Companion to Relativism (edited, Wiley-Blackwell, 2011).

Jennifer Adrienne Johnson is an associate professor of psychology at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. She earned her degree in experimental psychology with a concentration in cognitive neuroscience from McGill University. She has focused her research on better understanding human attentional processing and has published her work in journals such as Cerebral Cortex and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

Neil Levy is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, based at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Melbourne, Australia. He works mainly on questions at the intersection of the sciences of the mind and ethics, as well as free will. His most recent books are Hard Luck (Oxford, 2011) and Consciousness and Moral Responsibility (Oxford, 2014).

Rachel McKinnon is an assistant professor of philosophy at the College of Charleston. Her main fields of research are epistemology and philosophy of language. Her primary focus is on the relationship between knowledge and action. Specifically, much of her research focuses on the norms of assertion. She has published widely on this topic in journals such as Philosophical Studies, American Philosophical Quarterly, and Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, and she is currently preparing a book manuscript.

Alfred R. Mele is the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University and director of the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control project (2014–2017). He is the author often books, including Free Will and Luck (Oxford, 2006), and more than two hundred articles.

Joe Milburn is about to complete his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. He specializes in epistemology.

Duncan Pritchard is a professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and director of the Eidyn Research Centre. His main field of research is epistemology, and he has published widely in this area, including the monographs Epistemic Luck (Oxford, 2005), The Nature and Value of Knowledge (co-authored, Oxford, 2010), and Epistemological Disjunctivism (Oxford, 2012).

Nicholas Rescher is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has served for over fifty years. He has published more than a hundred books ranging over virtually every branch of philosophy. The recipient of eight honorary doctorates from universities on three continents, he has served as president of the American Philosophical Association, the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the American Metaphysical Society, the American Leibniz Society, and the C. S. Peirce Society.

Wayne D. Riggs is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Oklahoma. He works almost exclusively in the area of epistemology, though his philosophical interests range more widely, especially into the philosophy of science, value theory, and ethics.

Sabine Roeser is a professor of philosophy at TU Delft. Her research focuses on risk, emotion, and ethical intuitionism. She has published the monograph Moral Emotions and Intuitions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and has edited numerous books on risk ethics plus a forthcoming volume, Emotion and Value (Oxford, co-edited with Cain Todd). She has published articles on risk and emotion in Risk Analysis, the Journal of Risk Research, and Energy Policy.

Lee John Whittington is about to complete his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. His thesis attempts to provide an account of the metaphysics of luck and show how this account applies to moral and epistemic luck.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

DUNCAN PRITCHARD AND LEE JOHN WHITTINGTON

Luck is clearly an important philosophical notion. It plays a fundamental role in key debates across a number of core areas of philosophy, including epistemology (epistemic luck), political philosophy (just deserts), metaphysics (causation), and ethics (moral luck). And yet until quite recently the notion of luck was not itself explored by philosophers but rather was for the most part treated as an undefined primitive. Recent years have, however, seen an upsurge of critical exploration of luck in the philosophical literature. The goal of this collection is to bring together a broad cross-section of the best contemporary work on this topic, written by both established and up-and-coming philosophers.

The collection grew out of an international workshop on the philosophy of luck which was hosted by the Eidyn Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh in June 2013, and which was supported by funds from both Eidyn and the Scots Philosophical Association. This workshop featured talks by Nathan Ballantyne, Steven Hales, Joe Milburn, Wayne Riggs, Sabine Roeser, and Lee John Whittington. Many of the speakers at this event are represented in this collection (Steven Hales's contribution is now co-written with his colleague Jennifer Adrienne Johnson), though the essays here are inevitably very different from the versions presented in Edinburgh.

To the papers arising out of the workshop, we've added some further commissioned pieces in order to make this collection a more comprehensive treatment of the topic. In particular, we've included a new piece by Nicholas Rescher—who is arguably the first philosopher in the contemporary literature to put forward a theory of luck—that offers a useful overview of his position. The collection also includes commissioned essays by several philosophers who have written distinctive work on luck in recent years: Fernando Broncano-Berrocal, E. J. Coffman, Neil Levy, Alfred Mele, and Rachel McKinnon. Finally, it includes a new statement and defence of the modal account of luck by one of the editors, Duncan Pritchard. The result is a collection which we believe substantially furthers the philosophical debate about the nature of luck, and which we hope will inform this debate in the years to come.

Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to thank the journal Metaphilosophy for including this volume in the Metaphilosophy Series in Philosophy. In particular, we would like to thank the editor in chief, Armen Marsoobian, for his support in this endeavour, and also the managing editor, Otto Bohlmann, for all his sterling work helping us to put the collection together.

CHAPTER 1LUCK AS RISK AND THE LACK OF CONTROL ACCOUNT OF LUCK

FERNANDO BRONCANO-BERROCAL

The notions of luck and risk are closely related. Many of the luckiest events we can imagine occur in situations where there is a large amount of risk involved. Being the only survivor in a plane crash or winning roulette after betting one's life savings on one spin are examples of very lucky events that occur in situations where there is a lot of risk involved. In this essay, I aim to investigate the conceptual connection between luck and risk. More specifically, I aim to explain the former in terms of the latter.

Let me start with a quick overview of the philosophical literature on luck so as to frame the discussion. Philosophers who have theorized about luck have characterized the notion using three types of conditions: (1) chance conditions, (2) lack of control conditions, and (3) significance conditions. The core idea of chance conditions is that lucky events are by chance. Lack of control conditions roughly say that an event is lucky for an agent only if the agent lacks control over it, whereas significance conditions say that an event, even if chancy or beyond the agent's control, cannot be regarded as lucky unless it is significant to the agent.

Each type of condition has several versions, depending on how the relevant notions of chance, control, and significance are cashed out. For example, depending on what is thought to determine the chance of an event occurring, the chance condition is or might be formulated in terms of: (1.1) accidentality (the idea is that whatever makes an event accidental is what makes it chancy);1 (1.2) indeterminacy (the idea here is that chancy events are events that were not determined to occur prior to their occurrence);2 (1.3) subjective probability (under this interpretation, the chance component of luck is cashed out in terms of what is expected to occur by the lucky agent);3 (1.4) epistemic probability (this view states that chancy events are events that are not likely to occur given available evidence);4the notion of being in a position to know (according to this view, luck is a matter of failing to be in a position to know that an event will occur);5objective probability (chancy events are events whose occurrence is objectively unlikely);6 and (1.7) modality (chancy events are events that would fail to occur in close possible worlds).7

On the other hand, lack of control conditions are formulated in terms of: (2.1) failing to exploit the target lucky event for some purpose (see Riggs 2009); (2.2) not being free to do something that would help produce it and prevent it (see Coffman 2009); and (2.3) there not being a basic action that the lucky agent could perform which she knows would bring about the lucky event (and how it would do so) (see Levy 2011, chap. 2).

Finally, the significance condition is stated in terms of: (3.1) the lucky agent being able to ascribe significance to the lucky event if she were availed of the relevant facts (see Pritchard 2005, 132–33); (3.2) the lucky event having some objective evaluative status for the lucky agent (a sentient being) (see Coffman 2007, 388); and (3.3) the lucky agent having some interest and the lucky event having some objectively positive or negative effect on it (see Ballantyne 2012, 331).

As one can imagine, different definitions of luck result from combining these versions of the significance, chance, and lack of control conditions. We do not need to go into further detail here. It suffices to note that some commentators think that the three types of conditions are necessary (and jointly sufficient) for luck,8 that others drop the lack of control condition from their definitions,9 that some others drop the chance condition and go for a pure lack of control account of luck,10 and that there are alternative accounts that include neither chance nor lack of control conditions.11 It is also worth noting that most commentators think that the significance condition is necessary for luck, although this point has recently been disputed.12

With this overview of the literature in hand, we can now frame the forthcoming discussion. The aim of this essay is mainly positive— namely, to give an account of luck in terms of the notion of risk. This means that I will not argue against the definitions of luck referred to in the preceding paragraph. In addition, I assume (with most commentators) that a properly stated version of the significance condition is necessary for luck. My sympathies are with (3.3) (this is an assumption for which I will give no argument). Finally, I will only discuss those versions of the chance condition that I consider relevant to explaining luck in terms of risk. In particular, I will not address (1.1), (1.2), (1.3), (1.4), and (1.5). However, (1.6) and (1.7) will be relevant. As regards the lack of control condition, I aim to advance my own account of the notion of control. For reasons of space, (2.1), (2.2), and (2.3) will be only tangential to the discussion.

Without further ado, let me indicate how the essay is structured. In section 1, I make a distinction between two senses of risk that serve to account for luck: the event-relative and the agent-relative senses of risk. In section 2, I present two ways of interpreting event-relative risk: in modal and in probabilistic terms. In section 3, I argue that, although both interpretations of event-relative risk seem correct qua accounts of risk, only the modal interpretation correctly accounts for luck. In section 4, I cash out the agent-relative sense of risk in terms of lack of control and I suggest that any significant event that is lucky for an agent is an event with respect to which the agent is at risk. In section 5, I categorize lucky and nonlucky cases by means of the event-relative/agent-relative distinction concerning risk. As a result, I argue that there are two different types of luck (or of fortune): one that does not involve event-relative risk and one that does involve it. I argue that both arise out of agent-relative risk (that is, lack of control over the relevant event). In section 6, I advance an account of the notion of control so as to explain in which sense an agent is at risk with respect to an event and how this bears on luck. In section 7, I summarize my view and offer a reply to several counterexamples to the lack of control account of luck.

1. Two Senses of Risk

The idea that luck can be explained in terms of risk is already in the literature. For example, E. J. Coffman interprets Duncan Pritchard's modal chance condition for luck (the condition that an event E is lucky for S only if E occurs in the actual world but would not occur in nearly, if not all, close possible worlds where the initial conditions for E are the same as in the actual world) (see Pritchard 2005, 128) as being equivalent to the view that luck is a matter of risk, where risk is understood in terms of the notion of easy possibility and easy possibility in terms of closeness between worlds, so that E could easily occur at t′ just in case it would occur at t′ in possible worlds close to actuality as they are at t (Coffman 2007, 390). Pritchard (2015 and manuscript) ratifies this interpretation by explicitly accounting for luck in terms of modal risk.13

Although the possibility of explaining luck in terms of risk is already entertained by Pritchard and Coffman, the considerations they offer on the connection between both notions are limited to only one sense of the notion of risk: the risk that lucky events had of not occurring. To be clear, there is a sense of the notion of risk that can be used to account for the notion of luck that has to do with the possible occurrence or nonoccurrence of an event, as when we say that there is risk that a World War II grenade on the tip of a cone will fall or that a talk to be given by a speaker with flu will be canceled. Let us call this sense of risk the event-relative sense of risk.

My claim (and here comes what I take to be a novel point in the literature) is that there is another interesting application of the notion of risk to the luck debate. In addition to affirming or denying that events are at risk of occurring or not occurring, we also affirm or deny that agents are at risk with respect to the possible occurrence or nonoccurrence of events, as when we say that a child is at risk with respect to the possible explosion of the World War II grenade which he has just picked up from the ground and with which he is enthusiastically playing, or less dramatically, the risk at which the members of an audience are with respect to the possible cancellation of the talk they are attending. Let us call this sense of risk the agent-relative sense of risk. My proposal is that when it comes to account for the notion of luck as a form of risk we should take into consideration not only the risk that lucky events had of not occurring (as Pritchard and Coffman do) but also the risk at which agents are with respect to lucky events. The task I undertake next is to give adequate definitions of the two senses of risk just distinguished and to show how they can be used to account for luck.

2. Event-Relative Risk: Modal and Probabilistic Interpretations

How can we understand the term “risk” in sentences of the form “There is risk that event E will occur” or “There is risk that event E will not occur”? One proposal is already offered by Coffman and Pritchard: we should understand it in terms of close possibility of occurrence. Keeping the spirit of their proposal, we can define the event-relative sense of risk as follows:

Modal Risk (MR): E is at risk of occurring at t if and only if E would occur at t in a large enough proportion of close possible worlds.14

Why does MR include the expression “in a large enough proportion of close possible worlds” rather than, say, “in most close possible worlds” or “in nearly all, if not all, close possible worlds”? Because there does not seem to be a fixed proportion of close possible worlds in which an event would have to occur to be considered, in all contexts, at risk of occurring. While it is true that in most situations we would not regard an event as being at a significant risk of occurring if it were not to occur in most or at least many close possible worlds (think about ordinary events such as snowing, running out of power while writing a paper, or bumping into a glass door), this is not true of all instances of event-relative risk. Some events are regarded as being at a significant risk of occurring even though they would fail to occur in most close possible worlds. Consider Nicholas Rescher's example of someone surviving a round of Russian roulette with one bullet in the chamber of a revolver with a six-shot capacity.15 The approximately 0.16 probability of being shot indicates that the person would survive in most close possible worlds. This does not, however, prevent us from claiming that she was at a significant risk of being shot and hence of dying. Examples of this sort indicate that an event can be at a significant risk of occurring even though its occurrence is not easily possible.16

An alternative to MR, which defines the event-relative sense of risk in terms of close possibility of occurrence, is to understand event-relative risk in terms of high probability of occurrence:

Probabilistic Risk (PR): E is at risk of occurring at t if and only if there is high probability that E will occur at t.17

The kind of probabilities that are relevant in PR are physical probabilities or chances, that is, the kind of probabilities posited by scientific theories, which are determined neither by scientific evidence nor by degrees of belief but by features of the world. This is why most philosophers call them objective probabilities. For example, the risk of developing cancer by having a diet based on processed food is greater than the risk of developing cancer by having a diet based on vegetables because the probability of the former is higher than the probability of the latter. PR explains risk in these terms.18

What is the correct way of conceptualizing risk in general: MR or PR? In my opinion, both are correct. PR better fits the notion of risk that is used in scientific and technical contexts, where the risk that an event has of occurring is usually determined with scientific models that calculate, for example, the objective probability of occurrence of that type of event in a long sequence of trials.

By contrast, MR better fits the ordinary notion of risk. In everyday life, when it comes to assessing the risk that an event has of occurring, we resort to our cognitive capacity to handle subjunctive conditionals. The judgments delivered by this capacity are arguably less precise than those delivered by a scientific model. What might be regarded as a defect, however, is in fact a virtue, because, on the other side of the coin, it allows us to make lots of true risk ascriptions quickly and on the basis of insufficient evidence, something that has an adaptive value.19

Therefore, PR and MR seem to capture two complementary sides of the event-relative sense of the notion of risk. As we will see next, they serve to formulate two different types of objective chance conditions for luck that roughly correspond to (1.6) and (1.7) (see the introductory section of the essay) and, in this sense, they help characterize the phenomenon of luck as an instance of the more general phenomenon of risk. Nevertheless, although the notions of risk that underlie these chance conditions seem both correct, I will show that only chance conditions formulated in modal terms serve to account for luck.20 In particular, I will show that objective probabilistic chance conditions cannot account for cases of highly probable lucky events.

3. Event-Relative Risk: Modal or Probabilistic?

Intuitively, winning a fair lottery is at risk of not occurring in the sense stated by MR because one would not win in most close possible worlds (which is a large enough proportion). Winning a fair lottery is also a paradigmatic case of luck, so MR can be intuitively used to motivate corresponding modal chance conditions for luck like the following:

Modal Chance (MC): E is lucky for S only if E occurs in the actual world but would not occur in a large enough proportion of close possible worlds where the relevant initial conditions for E are the same as in the actual world.21

The same applies to PR. Intuitively, winning a fair lottery is at risk of not occurring in the probabilistic sense because, prior to winning, there was high probability that one would lose. PR motivates corresponding probabilistic chance conditions for luck like the following:

Probabilistic Chance (PC): E is lucky for S at t only if, prior to the occurrence of E at t, there was low objective probability that E would occur at t.

One might prefer to use conditional probabilities to formulate the relevant chance condition:

Conditional Probabilistic Chance (CPC): E is lucky for S at t only if, prior to the occurrence of E at t, there was low objective probability conditional on C that E would occur at t.22

C is whatever condition one uses to calculate the probability that E will occur. For example, the unconditional probability that Lionel Messi will score at the match is high, but given C (the fact that he is injured) the probability that he will score is low. Suppose that Messi ends up scoring by luck. CPC explains why: Messi was injured, and therefore, given his injury, it was not very probable that he would score.

Although objective probabilistic chance conditions explain most cases of luck, I will argue that there might be high (conditional or unconditional) objective probability that E will occur at t and yet E might occur by luck at t. In other words, I will show that there are highly probable lucky events and hence that PC and CPC are not necessary for luck. Consider the following hypothetical scenario:

Lazy Luke. In a distant future, the galaxy is populated by billions and billions of people. The billions of corporations of the Galactic Empire are hiring computer technicians. Our hero, Luke, is an unemployed computer technician. He is extremely lazy and does not want to work at all. All he wants is to lie on the couch and play video games. The Galactic Empire's political system, however, forces unemployed people to apply for jobs constantly, so Luke reluctantly switches on his supercomputer and starts applying for billions of jobs. Luke, who is a clever guy after all, uploads a very bad CV to the system. In fact, he makes sure to upload the worst CV of the galaxy (he knows how to do that). Hiring decisions are made based on the number of candidates and the quality of their CVs, so by submitting a disastrous CV, Luke ensures that whenever there is another candidate, he will not be chosen. Furthermore, he knows that his name is on the I.D.L.E. list, that is, the list of Individuals Devoted to Leisure and Enjoyment, which contains the names of those who should never be hired because of their extreme laziness (all companies use I.D.L.E.). Competition for jobs is fierce, so for every single job there are millions of applications (something that Luke knows). He also knows that people normally inflate their CVs.

Today everything seems to be alright: for each job offer, Luke has uploaded the worst CV, has checked that there are more applicants, that he is on I.D.L.E., and so on. Unbeknownst to him, however, there is a problem with the application sent to company No. 86792922, MicroCorp. Due to some unusual interference in the data stream, the contents of the CV Luke has sent to MicroCorp suddenly change in such a way that the human resources department receives a CV full of so many brilliant achievements that they decide to hire Luke instantly (by law, once a company hires a worker, the worker cannot be fired for a period of one year).

Intuitively, it is by bad luck that Luke gets the job (remember: he does not want to get a job). So it is by luck that he gets at least one job. PC says that an event (for example, getting a job) is lucky for an agent only if, prior to the occurrence of the event, there was low objective probability that the event would occur. In Lazy Luke, however, the probability of getting at least one job is very high. This is so because the probability of a disjunction of independent events (such as getting a job at different places) is , which means that the bigger n is, the bigger will be the probability of the disjunction (that is, the probability that at least one of the disjuncts obtains). In Lazy Luke, n is huge, since the system allows Luke to apply for billions of jobs simultaneously. Thus, given the huge number of applications sent, the probability of getting at least one job is very high. It is by luck that Luke gets a job. Therefore, contrary to what PC requires, low probability of occurrence cannot be necessary for luck.

The result is no better in the case of conditional probabilities. Recall CPC: E is lucky for S at t only if, prior to E's occurrence at t, there was low objective probability conditional on C that E would occur at t, where C is some condition to be specified. In Lazy Luke, C might be the fact that, for each job, Luke makes sure (1) to upload the worst CV, (2) to check that there is a considerable number of applicants, (3) to check that he is on I.D.L.E., and so on. In the case of the job at MicroCorp, C could also include the fact that some interference in the data stream changes the contents of Luke's CV in such a way that the company receives an excellent CV. The probability that Luke gets a job at MicroCorp conditional on C (so understood) is certainly very low. But, once again, for a sufficient number of conditionalized disjuncts the probability that he gets at least one job is very high. Yet it is by luck that Luke gets a job at MicroCorp and, therefore, it is by luck that he gets at least one job. The condition stated by CPC is not necessary for luck.

By contrast, MC explains Lazy Luke in a rather simple, natural way: although the probability that Luke gets at least one job is high, it is by luck that Luke gets a job because in most close possible worlds in which he applies for the job offer at MicroCorp there is no data interference, and he does not finally get the job.

It is important to explain why, as in terms of MC, in close possible worlds Luke does not get a job in any other company (that is, why there is no close risk that he will be hired in any other place), given that he has applied for all job offers and hence given the high probability of getting at least one job. The reason is that for each job offer he makes himself safe from the eventuality of getting a job (he submits the worst CV, he checks that there are more candidates, that he is on I.D.L.E., and so on). His actual actions prevent possible worlds in which Luke would get a job from being close, because closeness is fixed by similarity to the actual world, and possible worlds in which he gets a job are dissimilar in that he does not perform such actions. Compare his situation with an inverse scenario: lottery players are not completely safe from the eventuality of winning (suppose the prize is death), despite the low probability of winning, because they are typically not in a position to make themselves safe from that eventuality, say, by rigging the lottery system. The point is that since typical lottery players do not actually rig the lottery, possible worlds in which they do not rig it are close, and in some of them they win, hence the risk of winning despite its low probability of occurring.23 I conclude that the most adequate way to characterize the event-relative sense of risk that serves to conceptualize luck as risk is modal, not probabilistic.

4. Agent-Relative Risk as Lack of Control

Lazy Luke, a case of luck, involves not only the risk that Luke gets a job at MicroCorp (event-relative risk) but also the risk at which Luke himself is with respect to that eventuality. This is the agent-relative sense of risk, which, I argue, is an essential part of our understanding of luck. A definition of agent-relative risk should give an answer to the following question: What kind of relation must an agent have with an event in order for that event (its occurrence or nonoccurrence) to be safe for the agent? My proposal is that the relation is a relation of control: the occurrence (or nonoccurrence) of an event is safe for an agent just in case the event is under the control of the agent. Luke, for example, submits the worst CV in all job applications, he checks that there are more candidates, that he is on I.D.L.E., and so on. In this way, he has control over the eventuality of getting a job. The agent-relative sense of risk, that is, the risk at which an agent is with respect to a significant event can be accordingly defined as lack of control over the event.

One of my initial assumptions has been that the significance condition for luck is to be understood in terms of (3.3), the lucky agent having some interest and the lucky event having some objectively positive or negative effect on it.24 The idea is that significant events are events that have a positive or negative impact on our subjective and/or objective interests. My suggestion is that in the same way as certain events are not lucky because they affect nobody's interests, one is not at risk with respect to certain events that are beyond one's control, precisely because they are not significant to one in the stipulated sense. For example, for most of us, the fall of a leaf in the middle of the Amazon jungle has no impact on our objective or subjective interests, as it affects neither our health nor our biological functioning, and has no effect on the objects of our desires or preferences. In the same way, we are at no risk with respect to several atomic nuclei joining in a very distant point of the universe (something that we cannot control). We are certainly at risk, however, with respect to the same nuclear fusion if it triggers a nuclear explosion near us (something that we cannot control either). The reason is clear. In the latter case, the nuclear fusion affects our most important objective interest: being alive.

In view of these considerations, I propose the following definition of agent-relative risk:

Agential Risk (AR): S is at risk with respect to an event E if and only if (i) S has an interest N, (ii) if E were to occur, it would have some objectively positive or negative effect on N, and (iii) S lacks control over E.

My hypothesis is that any significant event that is lucky for an agent is also an event with respect to which the agent is at risk in the sense specified by AR. A qualification is in order, though. Lucky events negatively or positively affect one's interests. Compatibly, AR says that one is at risk with respect to whatever significant event is beyond one's control, which entails that one can be at risk with respect to events that decrease or increase one's well-being. In ordinary discourse, however, the term “risk” is most commonly used as synonymous with “danger” or “hazard,” where a dangerous or a hazardous event is a significant event which has adverse or unwelcome consequences for one's interests and over which one lacks control. For example, the ordinary conception of risk as danger is the reason many would not say that lottery players are at risk of winning. But AR stretches the ordinary usage of the expression “at risk of” so that it does not necessarily mean “in danger of.” Is this move justified? In which sense are we at risk with respect to uncontrolled significant events that end up increasing our well-being?

The short answer is that we are at risk with respect to those events because they affect us in ways that diverge from the path traced by our goal-directed controlled actions. When we have control over an event, we can count on it. However, events beyond our control, even those that carry positive effects, are events on which we cannot count, for example, in order to take further action. By way of illustration, inexperienced investors playing the stock market typically buy shares without knowing the relevant financial technicalities or the maneuvers that big investor groups perform to make money at their expense. Even if the prices of the shares rise and they become rich (which is something positive as far as their subjective interests are concerned), the rise of the prices is something on which they cannot count at the time of the investment because it is something beyond their control. Thus, it would be irrational for them to apply for a big loan from a bank to set up an expensive business on the assumption that the forthcoming profit in the stock market would be sufficient to repay it. AR allows for “good” risks, true, but risks after all, and in general we cannot rely on risks, even if unknowingly beneficial.

5. Four Combinations of Risks, Two Ways of Being Lucky (or Fortunate)

Let us put all the pieces together. On the one hand, an event can be at risk of occurring (or of not occurring). I have called this event-relative risk. On the other hand, an agent can be at risk with respect to an event. I have called this agent-relative risk. Event-relative risk has been understood in modal terms (MR), and agent-relative risk in terms of lack of control (AR). By combining these two senses of risk, we can come up with four different structures of cases. Suppose that an event E actually occurs. There are four possibilities:

S

is at risk with respect to

E

and

E

was at risk of not occurring.

S

is at risk with respect to

E

and

E

was not at risk of not occurring.

S

is not at risk with respect to

E

and

E

was not at risk of not occurring.

S

is not at risk with respect to

E

and

E

was at risk of not occurring.

A-cases constitute paradigmatic cases of luck. A good example of an A-case is winning a fair lottery. When one wins a fair lottery, prior to the lottery draw, the fact that one would win was at big risk of not occurring, that is, one would lose in close possible worlds (event-relative risk). In addition, if the lottery is fair, one is at risk of not winning because one has no control over the lottery process and its outcomes (agent-relative risk).25

B-cases also constitute cases of luck. A B-case would be, for example, a case in which one wins a lottery because, unbeknownst to one, the organizer has rigged the lottery in one's favor. In this case, there is no risk of losing the lottery, because the organizer diligently manipulates the lottery system so that one wins in the actual and in all close possible worlds (no event-relative risk). Still, one is at risk with respect to the outcome of the lottery because one has no control over the lottery process (agent-relative risk). For this reason, we intuitively say that one is lucky to win.

C-cases, by contrast, involve no risk whatsoever, so we should not expect the presence of luck in them. A C-case would be, for example, a case in which one rigs a lottery in one's favor. Winning in that case would not be by luck, because (1) the eventuality of losing is at no risk of happening (no event-relative risk) and (2) one is at no risk of losing, provided that one has control over the lottery process (no agent-relative risk).

D-cases are cases in which the relevant event is at risk of not occurring (or of occurring, depending on the case) and yet one is at no risk with respect to that event. Excellent examples of D-cases are decisions made on a whim (whimsical decisions). Let me use one of Jennifer Lackey's examples (Lackey 2008). Suppose that one decides to go to Paris for the weekend on a whim. Since one has made the decision on a whim, the decision was at big risk of not being made (event-relative risk). However, one was at no risk of not deciding to go to Paris because, even though the decision was made on a whim and, therefore, one could easily have not made it, it was a self-consciously made decision after all, which means that one had control over the somehow precipitated deliberation process (no agent-relative risk). Interestingly, this means that, although one could easily have not made the decision, it is not by luck that one makes it.26 In this sense, D-cases are not cases of luck.

Before using this taxonomy of cases to shed some light on the relationship between the notions of luck and risk, let me briefly evaluate Lackey's argument concerning whimsical events (significant events that result from whimsical decisions) to the conclusion that conjoining a modal chance condition (for example, MC) with a significance condition does not suffice to define the notion of luck. Keeping in mind that modal chance conditions roughly say that lucky events are modally fragile and that significance conditions say that they are significant, Lackey's argument is as follows:

decisions made on a whim are modally fragile, that is, they would not occur in close possible worlds;

given (1), if a significant event that results from a whimsical decision occurs in the actual world, the event would not occur in close possible worlds;

significant whimsical events are not by luck;

it follows from (2) and (3) that significant whimsical events are modally fragile but not by luck; and

therefore, conjoining a modal chance condition with a significance condition does not suffice to define luck.

Although I agree with Lackey's conclusion (my account of luck is a version of the lack of control account of luck), I do not think that it follows from the premises. That is, one can accept (l)–(4) without accepting (5). Lackey's error in thinking that the conclusion follows is due to a misconception concerning the clause on initial conditions of MC and similar chance conditions. While it might be true that if one decides to go to Paris on a whim, one would not go to Paris in most close possible worlds, the only close possible worlds that are relevant to assess whether it is by luck that one goes to Paris in the actual world are worlds in which the relevant initial conditions for the occurrence of the event are the same as in the actual world. As a general rule, one's decision to ϕ is always among the relevant initial conditions for one's ϕ-ing. Therefore, close possible worlds in which the relevant initial conditions for going to Paris are the same as in the actual world are worlds in which one makes the decision to go to Paris. In all close possible worlds in which one decides to go to Paris, one goes to Paris. Consequently, MC and similar conditions do not hold, and, therefore, they correctly rule out one's going to Paris as a case of luck.

Let us return to how the taxonomy of cases above bears on the relationship between the notions of luck and risk. We will focus first on cases in which there is no luck involved, that is, on C-cases and D-cases. C-cases show that luck does not arise if there is neither event-relative nor agent-relative risk. D-cases further show that the absence of luck is compatible with there being event-relative risk. Together with C-cases, they also show that luck does not arise if there is no agent-relative risk, that is, the absence of agent-relative risk guarantees the absence of luck. According to AR, agent-relative risk is essentially a matter of lacking control over an event. Therefore, there is no agent-relative risk, and hence no luck if one does not lack control over the relevant event, in other words, if one has control over the event.

What about cases of luck (A-cases and B-cases)? In both there is agent-relative risk (that is, lack of control over the relevant events) and hence luck. The question is: Are the events of A-cases and B-cases lucky in the same way? From a theoretical perspective, they are not, as only A-cases involve event-relative risk. But the theory is also backed up by intuition: winning a fair lottery (an A-case) does not intuitively have the same quality of “luckiness” as winning a lottery that, unbeknownst to one, someone has firmly decided to rig in one's favor (a B-case). In other words, the different intuitions elicited by A-cases and B-cases point to the existence of two different senses of the notion of luck. The presence or absence of event-relative risk is what explains the difference.

The distinction has been noted already in the literature, although not in the same terms in which I introduce it here. In particular, Coffman points out that there is a difference between luck and fortune in the following way: “You can be fortunate with respect to an event whose occurrence was extremely likely, whereas an event is lucky for you only if there was a significant chance the event wouldn't occur” (Coffman 2007, 392).

What I have shown so far is a motivated way of arriving at the distinction underlying Coffman's quote by characterizing the phenomenon of luck as an instance of the more general phenomenon of risk. In a slogan, luck is just risk. More specifically, my view is that luck arises just in case an agent is at risk with respect to an event. But an agent's luck may come in two guises, depending on whether there is risk that the relevant event fails to occur. This is a real distinction, but, contrary to what Coffman thinks, I do not think that the terms “luck” and “fortune” capture it. For both terms can be interchangeably used in ordinary discourse without risk of falsity or infelicitousness. For instance, we would indistinctively (and successfully) apply the terms “luck” and “fortune” to both A-cases and B-cases, for example, to both winning a fair and winning a rigged lottery.

Other commentators have also attempted to distinguish between luck and fortune as if these terms captured a real distinction.27 This is a mistake: there is a real distinction, but it is not captured by the terms “luck” and “fortune.” Our ordinary usage of the terms overlooks the conceptual difference between A-cases and B-cases. In order to distinguish the two sides of the concept to which the terms “luck” and “fortune” refer in ordinary discourse, we can call luck or fortune of type A the kind of luck/fortune that is present in A-cases and luck or fortune of type B the kind of luck/fortune that is present in B-cases.

A qualification is in order. While there are clear-cut cases of A-luck (for example, winning a fair lottery) and clear-cut cases of B-luck (for example, winning a lottery that, unbeknownst to one, has been rigged in one's favor), there are some cases in which we do not know whether to ascribe A-luck or B-luck. Contrary to what one might think, this is no objection to the present account, as the ordinary concept of luck or fortune is inherently vague, and consequently we should not expect our analysis of luck to remove all vagueness. On the contrary, it would be positive if it could predict the existence of such cases. In other words, the distinction between the two types (A-type and B-type) of luck or fortune need not be a sharp distinction.

How can we know whether a case is borderline, that is, a case that is neither clearly A-lucky nor clearly B-lucky? In general, if a case is on the borderline between clear-cut A-luck and B-luck, we will be unable to appeal to the modal fragility (A-luck) or modal robustness (B-luck) of the relevant event to explain its being by luck. Rather, the only thing to which we will be able to appeal in order to explain its intuitive “luckiness” or “fortunateness” is the fact that the agent lacks control over the event. That is, the somewhat vague limit between A-luck and B-luck (or A-fortune and B-fortune) emerges when the lack of control intuition does by itself all the explanatory work.

The concept to which the terms “luck” and “fortune” refer in ordinary discourse applies, therefore, to two different types of cases (A-cases and B-cases), but also to cases on the borderline between them. Why is it worth making the distinction? First, because it is a distinction we make at the intuitive level when we judge the outcomes of fair and rigged lotteries differently. If, unbeknownst to you, the organizer of a lottery has decided to make you win, your luck or fortune is not the same as when you win fairly. Second, it is worth making the distinction because it shows how pervasive the phenomenon of luck is.

To illustrate the latter point, consider Lackey's criticism concerning modal chance conditions such as MC (Lackey 2006; 2008). Lackey argues that cases like the following prove that they are not necessary for luck (adapted from Lackey 2006, 285):

Buried Treasure. Sophie has the strong desire to bury a treasure at location L. There is no chance that she buries the treasure at any other place. She buries it. Vincent has the strong desire to place a rose bush in the ground of L. There is no chance that he places the plant anywhere else. He goes to place it. As he is digging, he discovers Sophie's buried treasure. Sophie and Vincent neither know each other nor know anything about the other's actions.28

Lackey argues that, while Vincent's discovery is intuitively by luck, it would occur in most close possible worlds, which proves that modal chance conditions are not necessary for luck. I agree with Lackey that Buried Treasure is a case of luck (or of fortune). No philosophical theorizing will be able to neutralize that intuition. But the absence of event-relative risk indicates that Buried Treasure is a case of type B (Vincent's actual discovery would still occur in most close possible worlds, that is, it is sufficiently modally robust, not chancy). However, modal chance conditions are not meant to be necessary for luck/fortune of type B. Rather, they help define luck of type A, that is, the kind of luck that involves event-relative risk, which we easily identify in fair lotteries and other gambling games. Luck, in this way, is a pervasive phenomenon that comes in two different guises.

The perceived luckiness or fortunateness in Buried Treasure is essentially explained by Vincent's lack of control over his discovery. Or would we say that Vincent's discovery is by luck if he had known that there was a treasure in the area and had used a metal detector? In the next section, I give a detailed account of the notion of control that aims to explain the sense in which we are at risk with respect to events beyond our control, and how this bears on luck. This allows me to specify in which way Vincent lacks control over his discovery.

6. An Account of the Notion of Control

In philosophy, the term “control” has been extensively used to account for a variety of concepts, such as action, property and ownership, freedom, privacy, personal autonomy, responsibility, and luck. Typically, it is assumed that we are all able to distinguish when things are under or beyond our