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- Title
Lucky Idiots and Incompetent Villains: Luck and Responsibility in Meaningful Lives.
- Authors
Stevenson, Chad Mason
- Abstract
What is the relationship between meaning in life and luck? One popular view within the literature is that resultant luck vitiates meaning; that if the relevant state-of-affairs is primarily the result of luck, chance, or happenstance, rather than the person's actions, then no meaning is conferred. Call this the anti-luck constraint. In this article it is argued that we should reject the anti-luck constraint. Two types of cases, often cited as examples in favour of the anti-luck constraint, are examined: the lucky idiot and the incompetent villain. Such lives, it is contended, can be meaningful even when the relevant states-of-affairs are primarily the product of resultant luck.
- Subjects
FORTUNE; CHANCE; RESPONSIBILITY; PHILOSOPHICAL analysis; LITERATURE
- Publication
Philosophia, 2024, Vol 52, Issue 2, p417
- ISSN
0048-3893
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11406-024-00737-1