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Moral Luck, Neurodiversity, and Entrepreneurship

I’m writing on the spur of the moment because this morning a few things I love happened all at once:

So, today I serendipitously came across the concept of moral luck.

I say serendipitously because it was mentioned en passant by Natan Feltrin, a PhD candidate at the University of North Texas, while talking about polyamory.

(I’ll leave here the link to the video/podcast for reference, although it’s in Italian: Due chiacchiere con Natan Feltrin: Poliamore (min 30:00).)

Moral luck in a nutshell

Every society has norms and values. Whether the rules are written or unwritten, some actions are rewarded while others are frowned upon.

Take ancient Sparta.

Imagine you’re a boy. And you’re good at fighting. People want you to become a warrior. You’re even blessed to have a strong constitution and a healthy body!

But what if you don’t want to be a warrior?

We don’t get to choose what we want to be any more than we can choose our body type or sex. I wish this was self-evident, but I doubt it actually is.

You must be lucky to want exactly (or mostly) what other people already expect of you. To value what they value. What your society values.

And what if you don’t like that society?

Now, moral luck is a bit more nuanced than this. It is a philosophical concept studied in ethics, a branch of philosophy that investigates moral phenomena.

But I only want to focus on one aspect: how (un)lucky are you for being you?

Neurodiversity and luck

Not all brains work the same way. Some are like race cars, others like off-road vehicles. You’d want to use them accordingly, based on what they’re built for.

Neurodiversity is morally unlucky precisely because it is not about what you do: it is about what you are.

(To clarify, I should add that neurodiversity – or anything else, really – is not inherently unlucky. It depends on the moral values of a given society.)

We can’t choose to be born with or without ADHD, autism, dyslexia, and so on. We don’t even have a say in where we are born or whether we are born at all!

If you’re reading this, you’re already somewhat lucky: you could have been born in a place with no internet, no schools, no roof over your head – just bombs.

But that doesn’t say anything about your moral luck.

If you’re expected to focus in a noisy environment but you can’t stand a TV in the background chipping away at your attention, then you’re screwed.

Asking me to “just focus” in that condition would be like asking you not to blink: you can try and fight it, but you won’t be able to help it indefinitely.

Paraphrasing Orwell:

All people are different, but some people are more different than others.

Entrepreneurship and morality

As I’ve heard Natan talk about moral luck, neurodiversity was my first thought. I wasn’t even that surprised when it was briefly mentioned, shortly after.

But there’s another thought that sprang to my mind and that wasn’t explored.

So let’s make another thought experiment: imagine you’re 18, and your biggest dream is to become a doctor, a lawyer, or an entrepreneur. How lucky!

That’s not to say it’s going to be easy. You’ll have to work hard, sure enough. Still, nobody is going to actively discourage you from your noble pursuit.

But what if your dreams were instead about music, philosophy, or poetry?

In our society, everyone is expected to work and make money. Natural-born entrepreneurs enjoy doing just that, hence they are morally lucky.

But not all people are born with the entrepreneurial attitude, nor do they all have the same means (or luck) to develop an entrepreneurial mindset.

And even if we could, why should we all be pushed to do that?

I loved how Natan explained the difference between the performative aspects of a choice and the underlying essence of the person making the choice.

Sure, we can choose how to perform. But here’s the catch: the same choice does not always come equally easy to everyone. In fact, it almost never does.

Why? Because we are complex, and no one size fits all.

In the context of neurodiversity, “masking” means pretending you’re normal. But as Natan observed, it always brings some amount of psychological suffering.

I feel there’s a lot of masking going on in the world of work, often unnoticed.

This is Sparta

Remember the boy?

What if that was someone like Albert Einstein, Freddie Mercury, or Gandhi?

These people wouldn’t exactly thrive in ancient Sparta, right? Maybe they would die in battle before their twenties and the world would be none the wiser.

We can’t possibly know that, of course. Maybe they would adapt and do just fine. Maybe they would even find another path to greatness.

For one, I think they became great in the first place in spite of the society they lived in rather than because of it.

If you fail to become the next Steve Jobs, you may end up with a company and decent money after having done what you love for most of your life.

But if you fail to become the next Albert Einstein, all you’re left with is a boring day job at the patent office.

You think that’s bad? If you fail as the next Freddie Mercury, you may end up under a bridge. And if you fail as the next Gandhi, you rot in jail for nothing.

I’d love to live in a society that doesn’t punish us for being authentic. Where we can be ourselves without having to face needless psychological suffering.

But as much as I may wish for this or that, reality is just what it is.

And it is full of people who made the best with what they had.