Negotiating Moral Luck

In this essay, I intend to elucidate Thomas Nagel's radical concept of moral luck and the unnerving philosophical paradox that inevitably arises when it is stripped to its essence: in pursuit of a method of fair moral assessment, we approach the possibility that nothing and no one can be aptly judged on moral grounds. I analyze some refutations to this troubling paradox, including Susan Wolf's promising rejection of the subcategory of consequential luck due to the existence of a proposed "nameless virtue." In light of these refutations and Nagel's and Bernard Williams' musings on moral luck, I aim to propose courses of action that can lead to a functional society despite the paradox entailing the idea that humanity has not place for accurate moral judgment. In doing so, I suggest that moral luck must, to an extent, be ignored, and that a practical approach to humanity would continue to make moral judgments despite being threatened with Nagel's sound declaration that this behavior is not logical.