Luck

If there's a moral to the story of Gettier cases, perhaps it's that knowledge is incompatible with luck. In some
way or another, causal theorists, tracking theorists, reliabilists, and virtue epistemologists (who discuss proper
functions) are all seeking to rule out knowledge through luck. Knowledge is supposed to be the basis of rational
decision-making. Nonetheless -- from Los Vegas to Wall Street -- it seems like people like to take risks in the
hopes of getting lucky. The outcomes of games of chance aren't the sorts of things we can reliably predict,
don't cause the beliefs of winners, and arguably don't involve following the proper function of our reasoning
abilities.
Your assignment this week is to observe a game of chance. You can take this as literally or metaphorically as
you like - you can observe anything from a game of Monopoly or friends betting on the outcome of a football
game, to someone taking social risks or making a decision under risk. Your job is to look for the way winners of
a game of chance are treated by others, and the way losers of a game of chance are treated by others. What
do you observe? Does what you observe make sense to you? Why or why not? Why do you think we'd want a
concept -- knowledge -- which is incompatible with luck?