Thomas Nagel Moral Luck Summary

Although they share some similarities in their findings, the difference between Aristotle and Epictetus is clear. Beginning with the similarity between the two philosophers is easy. They both believe in the idea of luck. They believe that we as people, all have luck. The way they go about describing what luck is to them individually is where we see the difference in the two sides.

If helping a person would prevent your own self-interest, this would seem to make it morally permissible for a person to perform harm to others in situations where their self-interest would benefit from the action. But, an egoistic must act with one’s own eternal self-interest, therefore they are not just individuals who believe that they should always do what they like when they like because acting in accordance with this would not necessarily benefit the person in the long term. When we say that a person should do something, we are also implying is that they are capable of doing the action, but we cannot expect people to do things that they cannot do. Ethical egoism comes in two forms and they are act-egoism and rule-egoism. Act-egoism is the

Consequentialists are a group of philosophers who asses whether an act is right or wrong based on the consequences of the action. There are different types of consequentialism including: ethical egoism, act-utilitarianism and rule-utilitarianism. These three branches of consequentialism will be discussed later in this paper. A supererogatory act is something that is good but is not obligatory; these acts involve rendering aid to others that go above moral requirement. Consequentialists claim that there are no supererogatory acts; an act either produces the most pleasure and is therefore morally good, or it brings about pain and is morally bad.

One of the objections which I consider to be of strength is one regarding the over flexibility of the sanction principle. The in-built nature of utilitarianism as a theory, fails to impose plausible corrective consequences to those actions which do not comply with the stipulated rules of the moral theory. Though the theory claims to not promote actions of self benefit, it fails to blatantly rebuke actions contravening general morality, by offering acceptance to such given that the justification provided corresponds with the guidelines of the theory. This objection is of collorally effect to a line of criticisms. Bernard Williams presents a reasonable flaw of the theory not being able to uphold justice and fairness.

Without cooperation, all attempts to “act” or accomplish anything will be futile. This may be true; if all members of a group only serve themselves, there will be chaos. However, the claim that Socrates is trying to refute is that injustice is stronger or more profitable than justice. This does not imply anarchical injustice or chaos. Thus, Socrates is not arguing against the situations where injustice is most likely to succeed, but rather where it is least likely to succeed.

We often base our assumptions off of hypothesizing how someone else might feel or react in a certain situation. Yet we do not have the same point of view, or the same feelings which makes assumptions a dangerous thing. The Golden Rule might work in a certain situation and that will give you respect and confidence towards that person. However, you cannot always know what that person feels or want. People constantly “help” others in the way that they themselves would want to be helped, but the other person does not feel helped at all, because it is not the way that they want to be

There is no such thing that says that if someone is so certain that they can do something, they will be able to conquer that. Doubt, in many ways, is that in between. Doubt is what allows us to questions those certainties. Without doubt, our society would be merely an untraversable reality in which certainty and innovation would be disregarded. Certainty is a safety

As humans we have limitations in our endeavor and achievements. We can free ourselves from prejudices and blindness, but not to the whole of it. As Michael Morgan has said; our goal is to free ourselves from the distortion and corruptions of our finitude to become rational, active, and free. This is something like to become the whole, which sounds like the highest good, or divine. This is a challenge in life that we should not escape.

Meaning simply that just because of an event, good or bad, in your life occurs you can’t just change who you are. Sure you can try I did, but my worldview kept bringing me back. You can try to change who you are but you can't change your past experiences and emotions. So therefore my worldview changes and I rightfully think it should. My worldview is based off of strong morals and beliefs, but also an understanding of difference.

However, no matter how many other flaws can be found in his arguments, what matters are people’s lives. We can pretend the issue is not related to us or discuss the problem day and night and take very little steps to solve it, but we cannot ignore the fact that we are, as a society, the only ones who can help suffering people. It may not be reasonable to blame us for their problems anyway or demand a great amount of our income from us, though voluntary charity is a good alternative decision. The only key thing here is that we can only solve the global issue together. Does not a chance that something you do not value that much can save somebody’s live make it worth to try?