GETTING LUCK PROPERLY UNDER CONTROL RACHEL MCKINNON Abstract: This article proposes a new account of luck and how luck impacts attributions of credit for agents’ actions. It proposes an analogy with the expected value of a series of wagers and argues that luck is the difference between actual outcomes and expected value. The upshot of the argument is that when consider- ing the interplay of intention, chance, outcomes, skill, and actions, we ought to be more parsimonious in our attributions of credit when exercising a skill and obtain- ing successful outcomes, and more generous in our attributions of credit when exercising a skill but obtaining unsuccessful outcomes. Furthermore, the article argues that when agents skillfully perform an action, they deserve the same amount of credit whether their action is successful or unsuccessful in achieving the goal. Keywords: luck, metaphysics, epistemology, expected value, control, modal, chance. 1. Introduction A randomly selected fan, Bill, at a basketball game is selected for a million-dollar half-time contest requiring a full-court shot (from one side of the court to the other). Bill has never played basketball, but he makes the shot nonetheless and is a million dollars richer. At an NFL game, the quarterback makes a Hail Mary pass in the closing seconds of the game. The receiver, Terrell, under heavy coverage, bumbles the pass and juggles it repeatedly while falling but ultimately catches the ball for the winning touchdown. Jane is watching the televised draw of a large lottery, to which she holds a ticket, and realizes that she holds the winning ticket. Vincent, while wanting to plant a rose bush on the island he inhabits, finds the best location for growing roses and, while digging, finds some buried treasure. All of these cases seem to be instances of luck: Bill making the shot, Terrell making the catch, Jane winning the lottery, and Vincent finding the treasure. Providing an account of luck that captures each of these cases has, however, been surprisingly difficult. In this article I offer an account of luck that captures each case, along with some important intuitions, which will have some fortunate upshots for topics in both ethics and epistemology. I propose that we separate important metaphysical ques- tions about the nature of luck from equally important epistemological © 2013 Metaphilosophy LLC and John Wiley & Sons Ltd METAPHILOSOPHY Vol. 44, No. 4, July 2013 0026-1068 © 2013 Metaphilosophy LLC and John Wiley & Sons Ltd