Types of Moral Luck. There are four ways in which the “natural objects of moral assessment” can be subject to moral luck (Xxxxx, 1976: 140, named and expanded upon by Xxxxxx, 2023: 1). Putting aside “causal luck”, which is not directly relevant to our questions here, three types of moral luck are important for understanding why politicians may not be able to avoid dirt. Firstly, “circumstantial luck”, which concerns the circumstances we find ourselves in and the moral tests that we are asked to face (Xxxxx, 1976: 145-146). Xxxxx uses the example of the citizenry of Nazi Germany. They had a chance to behave heroically by opposing Nazism, but also the opportunity to behave deplorably by becoming complicit or culpable in the regime’s crimes. Another nation’s citizenry might well have failed this test in equal or even greater numbers, but because they did not face this choice, they lack culpability. Dirt arising from counterfactuals and hypotheticals is not the same.
