more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
With this infamous art of interpreting the concept of punishment, people have robbed of its innocence the whole, pure contingency of events.
Gist of Idea
Punishment has distorted the pure innocence of the contingency of outcomes
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 013)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Dawn (Daybreak) (v 5)', ed/tr. Smith, Brittain [Stanford 2011], p.14
A Reaction
What a wonderfully subtle observation about moral luck! That whole problem is driven by the issue of whether the agent should be punished. When a chain of errors leads to disaster, we may see many innocent people doing a collective evil.
Related Idea
Idea 20232 Get rid of the idea of punishment! It is a noxious weed! [Nietzsche]
269 | Attempted murder is like real murder, but we should respect the luck which avoided total ruin [Plato] |
14063 | Sooner a good decision going wrong, than a bad one turning out for the good [Epicurus] |
5126 | A carelessly thrown brick is condemned much more if it hits someone [Smith,A, by Harman] |
20233 | Punishment has distorted the pure innocence of the contingency of outcomes [Nietzsche] |
4426 | A bad result distorts one's judgement about the virtue of what one has done [Nietzsche] |
23282 | If all that matters in morality is motive and intention, that makes moral luck irrelevant [Williams,B] |
3272 | Moral luck can arise in character, preconditions, actual circumstances, and outcome [Nagel] |
6700 | We can't criticise people because of unforeseeable consequences [Graham] |
20193 | Moral luck means our praise and blame may exceed our control or awareness [Zagzebski] |