Luck & Ethics

If luck plays a role in being virtuous a dangerous moral hazard arises – you’re off the hook for being entirely responsible for the content of your character. If the environment plays a roles (eg, grew up in poor circumstances), you have to praise or blame the individual and the environment as a whole, with the upshot that being a good person is not entirely up to you. 

Going back to the ethical tenet "What Ought to Be" and since the environment plays an important role in our lives, shouldn’t one’s virtuous actions have strong effects on others? The individual is part of the environment and has a big responsibility to be a virtuous person and to help others to become virtuous themselves and not doing things that influence people toward vice (or excessive addictions). 

Is it difficult to be virtuous?  It depends.  According to Aristotle , it is difficult to be virtuous if you aren't in the habit of being virtuous. He notes that if you aren't virtuous, vice is a source of pleasure, but if you are virtuous, vice is a source of pain. Thus, the more virtuous you are, the easier it is to be virtuous. 

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