Nagel's "Moral Luck" - by Emily Cooper

Thomas Nagel argues that human morality is confounded by circumstances out of our immediate control. People are “morally at the mercy of fate” (34). Kant believes the essence of good will “would sparkle like a jewel in its on right”. Nagel argues that people outside of Nazi Germany were not presented with the opportunity to be moral or immoral in response due to their distance.

I believe that people have the moral responsibility to respond to situations which may not be in their immediate environment. This is what makes us human and imposes Kant’s good will in the face of mankind. We are all given these moral opportunities. For example, the starvation and genocide in Africa is a very real, extremely serious and devastating reality. However, it is not necessarily in our face due to the distance.

It seems to me that even though there are situations which many not be in our face, we are still morally responsible to respond. As humans, I feel as though we are all responsible to look after each other and do everything in our power to help one another whether we are immediately faced with situations in which we should respond or not immediately faced with these dilemmas. I think that moral responsibly is more in our control than Nagel assumes. We are all given choices in life and opportunities to respond to things that are morally wrong. It is up to us to make these changes occur; if we as humans don’t immediately help in any which way that we can, than nothing will ever change. Therefore, the direction of moral luck is a human imposition and truly our responsibly.