Resultant Luck and Responsibility for Character

According to a popular view, resultant luck does not affect the overall degree of responsibility of an agent. A lucky reckless driver who does not harm anyone is overall just as blameworthy as an unfortunate reckless driver who accidentally kills a pedestrian. This view appears to contradict a very plausible thesis about character formation, according to which responsibility for one’s character can increase one’s degree of responsibility for the actions motivated by that character. Given that character formation is ridden with resultant luck, it seems that one cannot hold both that responsibility is immune to resultant luck and that responsibility is increased by prior character-forming actions. I argue that there is no tension between the two theses. Given that agents exercise control over their character-forming actions, character formation is not a purely lucky process, and deniers of resultant luck can consistently hold the plausible thesis about character formation.