Doing the best one can: A new justification for the use of lotteries

Abstract

In some cases in which rational and moral agents experience moral uncertainty, they are unable to assign exact degrees of moral value-in a non-arbitrary way-to some of the different acts available to them, and so are unable to choose with certainty the best act. This article presents a new justification for the use of lotteries in this kind of situation. It is argued that sometimes the only rational thing for a morally motivated agent to do here is to use a lottery.