<![CDATA[The Igbo concept of Chi names the personal providence or guardian spirit believed to shape an individual's destiny, yet the literature is divided over whether Chi functions as a determinism that absolves the agent of responsibility or as a non-deterministic principle that preserves human agency. This paper intervenes in that debate by reframing Chi as an Igbo contribution to the contemporary philosophical problem of moral luck: the question of how far agents are responsible for outcomes shaped by factors beyond their control. It asks what conception of responsibility is embedded in the Igbo practice of appealing to Chi in the face of failure, and whether that conception can be defended philosophically rather than dismissed as fatalism. Drawing on conceptual analysis of Chi in Igbo metaphysics, engaging the recent rapprochement between Chi and Hegel's cunning of reason, and drawing on the moral luck literature initiated by Williams and Nagel, the paper argues that Chi is best understood not as a rival causal force that competes with human agency, but as a structuring condition of agency itself, one that distributes outcomes between fortune and effort without dissolving accountability. It defends the view that the Igbo maxim that a person may try and yet Chi refuse is not an excuse but a recognition of the limits of human control, and that this recognition is compatible with a demanding ethic of practical effort. The paper contends that Chi thus offers a non-Western resolution to the tension between accountability and fortune, and it concludes by drawing out the implications of this account for debates on moral responsibility, blame, and the ethics of failure.]]>
