Luck, Brute

Brute luck is the good or bad luck that one has independently of one's choices. Paradigmatic cases of brute luck are stumbling over a chest of gold (good) and being struck down by lightning (bad). Ronald Dworkin introduced the term brute luck in order to distinguish this kind of luck from option luck, or the luck one has as a result of a risk that one has either consciously taken or that one could in any case have foreseen and avoided. Paradigmatic cases of option luck include winning [Page 391]at roulette (good) and suffering an injury while practicing a dangerous sport (bad).

Dworkin's reason for introducing this distinction was an ethical one having to do with the relation between luck and justice. If Ann and Bob start life with equal chances of success, and Ann subsequently works hard to improve her lot while Bob fritters away his initial endowment on leisure, we are less inclined to object to the resulting inequality between Ann and Bob than if Bob had become disadvantaged as a result of some entirely unforeseeable accident. There is something unjust or morally arbitrary about an unequal distribution of the benefits and burdens of luck, whereas there is nothing unjust or morally arbitrary about an unequal distribution of benefits and burdens resulting from the choices of their respective beneficiaries or sufferers. By “luck” here, Dworkin means brute luck: in terms of distributive justice, Bob's losing his entire endowment in a roulette game would be no different from his frittering it away on leisure.

Similarly, when theorists of power distinguish between power and luck, they generally have in mind brute luck rather than option luck. To be powerful is to be able to achieve certain results if one tries, whereas to be lucky is simply to enjoy those results without any intervention on one's own part.

The distinction between brute and option luck is not always easy to draw. Suppose Smith's house is destroyed by an earthquake. Is this a case of bad brute luck? One might respond negatively on the grounds that Smith freely chose to buy a house in an area known to be at risk. On the other hand, one might deny that Smith really made a free choice, given that he could find no work in other areas. Perhaps the notion of option luck is best thought of as a matter of degree, ranging between the extremes of pure brute luck and wholly free choice.

If option luck is a matter of degree, then degrees of power should be seen as depending, in part, on degrees of option luck. Where a benefit is enjoyed as a matter of pure brute luck, power will have played no role in its creation. But where that benefit is a matter of option luck, its creation should be explained partly in terms of power, partly in terms of luck.