Yet it doesn t seem we can just dispense with the principle either. There are lots of reasons for this i If the point of moral evaluation is to encourage good behaviors and discourage bad ones, then it makes limited sense to evaluate people for things they have no control over i The idea that evaluations are properly sensitive to luck leads to very unwelcome consequences if you indulge it too completely. I gather there's a provision in American law that says you can't be thrown for a crime that wasn 't a crime at the time that you did it; that is, Congress can, t pass a law that retroactively applies to things that were legal at the time that they were done. This certainly seems to make sense. But what's the rationale? Apparently just that otherwise the legality of a person's act is too far out of their control; it's too much a matter of luck The main reason though why the principle has to be given its due though is this. It would be one thing if the principle were just an overgeneralization from certain clear cases, e.g., the case of the axe taken from my garage. Then we could say it's mostly valid but not always. This would be like the generalization that says "personal identity al ways requires memory when you think of the case of amnesia, or of someone who can't remember just a certain stage of their life, that starts to seem plainly wrong. The difference is that the anti-luck principle continues to tug at our intuitions even when we move past the original cases When we undermine moral assessment by considering new ways in which control is absent, we are not just discovering what would follow given the general hypothesis, but are actually being persuaded that in itself the absence of control is relevant in these cases too. The erosion of moral judgment emerges not as the absurd consequence of an over-simple theory, but as a natural consequence of the ordinary idea of moral assessment (531) So it begins to seem that both elements have to be there tugging against each other, the anti- luck principle and the practice in which luck is recognized and acknowledged as a factor in evaluation. but how are we to understand their relation? This is where Nagel makes a surprising suggestion. Basically what he says is that there is not a single truth about action and responsibility. There are truths, but which applies depends on the perspective we are adopting On the one hand we can consider our actions from an internal perspective, as things we do. Then luck seems irrelevant and the Libertarian is right; I am responsible only for what I am the sole author of Other people's actions can be considered from this perspective too, if we imagine taking up their position On the other hand we can consider our actions from an external perspective, not as things that we do but as things that happen in the natural world. Then it all becomes a matter of luck, of which way the cosmic wind is blowing Othe area of genuine agency, and... of legitimate moral judgment, seems to shrink under this scrutiny to an extensionless point(534) (As he says, this is why indeterminism seems no improvement. ) Note well that this isn,t to dissolve_ the tension Nagel is pointing to; it's rather to name it and identify it as a special case of a more general tension between the subjective and objective ways of looking at things A lot of other examples could be given. Color: are tomatoes really, objectively, red? Atoms in the void Time: now is subjectively special but objectively? Goodness: it seems important to us that"good things"happen people get fed and have satisfying experiences. But is it objectively important? Is the concept of goodness one that only has application from subjective point of view? Questions i Is the control principle right? Is the luck principle the right correlate? i Does it help to distinguish the evaluation of the person as opposed to the evaluation of an action?Yet it doesn't seem we can just dispense with the principle either. There are lots of reasons for this. ï If the point of moral evaluation is to encourage good behaviors and discourage bad ones, then it makes limited sense to evaluate people for things they have no control over. ï The idea that evaluations are properly sensitive to luck leads to very unwelcome consequences if you indulge it too completely. I gather there's a provision in American law that says you can't be thrown for a crime that wasn't a crime at the time that you did it; that is, Congress can't pass a law that retroactively applies to things that were legal at the time that they were done. This certainly seems to make sense. But what's the rationale? Apparently just that otherwise the legality of a person's act is too far out of their control; it's too much a matter of luck. The main reason though why the principle has to be given its due though is this. It would be one thing if the principle were just an overgeneralization from certain clear cases, e.g., the case of the axe taken from my garage. Then we could say it's mostly valid but not always. This would be like the generalization that says "personal identity always requires memory"; when you think of the case of amnesia, or of someone who can't remember just a certain stage of their life, that starts to seem plainly wrong. The difference is that the anti-luck principle continues to tug at our intuitions even when we move past the original cases: When we undermine moral assessment by considering new ways in which control is absent, we are not just discovering what would follow given the general hypothesis, but are actually being persuaded that in itself the absence of control is relevant in these cases too. The erosion of moral judgment emerges not as the absurd consequence of an over-simple theory, but as a natural consequence of the ordinary idea of moral assessment (531) So it begins to seem that both elements have to be there tugging against each other, the anti-luck principle and the practice in which luck is recognized and acknowledged as a factor in evaluation. But how are we to understand their relation? This is where Nagel makes a surprising suggestion. Basically what he says is that there is not a single truth about action and responsibility. There are truths, but which applies depends on the perspective we are adopting. On the one hand we can consider our actions from an internal perspective, as things we do. Then luck seems irrelevant and the Libertarian is right; I am responsible only for what I am the sole author of. Other people's actions can be considered from this perspective too, if we imagine taking up their position. On the other hand we can consider our actions from an external perspective, not as things that we do but as things that happen in the natural world. Then it all becomes a matter of luck, of which way the cosmic wind is blowing: Öthe area of genuine agency, and...of legitimate moral judgment, seems to shrink under this scrutiny to an extensionless point (534). (As he says, this is why indeterminism seems no improvement.) Note well that this isn't to dissolve the tension Nagel is pointing to; it's rather to name it and identify it as a special case of a more general tension between the subjective and objective ways of looking at things. A lot of other examples could be given. Color: are tomatoes really, objectively, red? Atoms in the void. Time: now is subjectively special but objectively? Goodness: it seems important to us that "good things" happen people get fed and have satisfying experiences. But is it objectively important? Is the concept of goodness one that only has application from a subjective point of view? Questions: ï Is the control principle right? Is the luck principle the right correlate? ï Does it help to distinguish the evaluation of the person as opposed to the evaluation of an action?