2026-08-04 · essay
Is a Win by Luck “My” Win? — The Philosophy of Alea and Desert
Late at night, Balatro handed me a personal-best score. Delighted, I sent it to a friend, who replied, “That was luck, right?” Can I call a win that chance dealt me my win? In this Nature of Play — Fragments piece, I sit two philosophers who would answer opposite ways face to face: Caillois, who insists chance is a first-class form of play, and Aristotle, who holds that a victory lives in a person’s activity, not in fortune. Slowly the two begin to set “a single throw” and “a long win-rate” on two separate plates.
