Single Review on past events

In her presentation on “The Workshop: Universal Knowledge. A Humanistic Idea brought to Life” Andrea Lailach-Hennrich didn´t talk about her research, but presented the concept of a yearly workshop organized by her and a group of friends. There they discuss interesting topics such as “water”, “energy”, “demography” or “madness” in an interdisciplinary fashion. The idea behind this concept is to exchange knowledge about different topics from various scientific perspectives, based on academic skills and with the aim to pass on knowledge in correspondence to specific locations and across generations.

What makes this workshop unique are at least three things: 1. the workshop is privately organized, which means that they are not funded by any institution and the contributions are entirely voluntary 2. they choose the location for the workshop in strong connection to the topic and 3. besides its academic value it also has become an integral part of the life of many people.

The structure of the workshop is the same ever year: On Friday they come together and have a barbecue, on Saturday the talks are presented and they vote for the next year‘s workshop topic, followed by a dinner and a cultural event (music or a movie). The Sunday is reserved for hiking.

The first workshop took place in 2001 with the topic “genetics”. Since 2008 the location is chosen according to the topic. So in 2008 they discussed about “time” in a watch manufacture. In 2010 “communication” was debated on a TV tower, and in 2011 when the topic was “water” they met on a biological station in Hiddensee on the Baltic Sea.  This year they chose to talk about “Luck/Happiness” and went to Linum where you can see a big crane migration.

The philosopher gave a short and exemplary talk which she presented at this year's workshop about “moral luck”. She stated: “The object of morality can be a person, an act or an intention. This object can be morally good or morally bad, morally wrong or right. We have moral sanctions such as moral indignation or exclusion from the in-group. Morally assessable is what we hold a person morally responsible for or a person‘s moral worth.”

According to Kant moral rules or moral standards apply for all rational creatures (universal validity). What is morally good (what we ought to do) does not differ with regard to different societies or religions. What Kant means by “to be valued incomparably higher” does not depend on personal interests and inclinations. Every single subject is hold responsible in the same way that is with respect to its good will.

The control principle says that we are morally assessable only to the extent that what we are assessed for depends on factors under our control. Two people ought not to be morally assessed differently if the only other differences between them are due to factors beyond their control.

Andrea Lailach-Hennrich distinguishes varieties of moral luck: Resultant moral luck means luck in the way one’s actions and projects turn out. Circumstantial moral luck is luck in the circumstances in which one finds oneself. And constitutive moral luck means luck in which one is, or in the traits and dispositions that one has.

To illustrate resultant moral luck, she told the story of the unfortunate driver: “Driver A drives from point a to b, his mobile rings, he picks up the phone (without using the hands free speaking system). He is therefore distracted for a few seconds. He reaches his destination.

Driver B drives from point a to b, his mobile rings, he picks up the phone (without using the hands free speaking system). He hits a child that is playing on the road.”

Are they both morally assessable in the same way?

She explained: “Moral luck makes a difference: The unfortunate driver is no worse a person than the fortunate driver. But we share the intuition that he is. Since we cannot plausibly hold the fortunate driver responsible for the death of a child (as no death occurred in his case), neither can we hold the unfortunate driver morally responsible for that death. But we do.

The external reason is beyond the control of the person: Both act in the same way, they have the same starting point. The only difference is the child on the road.”

And there is the dilemma: We are trapped between an intuition and a fact. The intuition is that luck must not make moral differences (for example, that luck must not affect what a person is morally responsible for). The fact is that luck does seem to make moral differences (for example, we blame the unfortunate driver more than the fortunate driver). In this case the control principle is violated. We assess two people differently even though the reasons for our assessment lie beyond their control.