ABSTRACT

Moral luck is real but living with this knowledge is difficult, in particular because attending to the radical uncertainty of future implications of one’s work may have a significant impact on research directions or publication plans. The scientist, the engineer, and the technological innovator, as individuals, may experience increased anxiety or regret an action performed in their professional capacity. I argue that a recipe for avoiding such ethical doom is a necessary part of the first-person attitude enabling serene research activity in full acceptance of the unpredictable twists of publicly assigned responsibility. By pursuing Bernard Williams’s analogy between the analytic approach of rational ethics and the moral doctrine of religious ethics, I argue in favor of the judgment based on trying wholeheartedly as the scientist’s objectively desirable, albeit externally unmeasurable, way of conduct.

摘要

道德上的运气是真实的，但掌握这些知识是困难的，特别是因为对工作未来影响的根本不确定性可能会对研究方向或出版计划产生重大影响。作为个体的科学家，工程师和技术创新者可能会感到焦虑加剧，或者对以专业能力执行的动作感到遗憾。我认为，避免这种道德厄运的秘诀是第一人称态度的必要组成部分，它可以使平静的研究活动完全接受公共分配的责任的不可预测的扭曲。通过追求伯纳德·威廉姆斯在理性伦理的分析方法与宗教伦理的道德学说之间的类比，