Judging an action on outcome or intent

[Meatman]

Not sure where I was going to post this, but as it isn't quite religion or politics, I decided to post it here.


A recent topic of debate came up with a friend of mine, which revolved around judging an action performed by a person based on the outcome, or the intention of that action.

Generally we ended up agreeing that it is much easier to base it on the outcome, as it is easy to measure the good/bad effects of it.

This made me wonder, are there any benefits at all to judging actions on intention? If so, what are they?

 

[lacktheknack]

It depends. For instance, if something happens entirely by accident (say, I go out to buy a sandwich and end up nuking the world, Mr. Magoo style), then judging by intention would produce a much different outcome than judging by action. Otherwise, intention equals action, so they're the same. That's why there's "accidental" and "intentional".

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Well that depends if we're considering it on a legal basis too.

It reminds me of a case I read about in, a man poionsed his mother's night time drink, and the next day she was dead.

It turned out she died of a heart attack before she ever touched the poison, the man was found guilty of attempted murder.

As soon as you start taking any kind of action towards what you intend, then the intention is good enough to judge a person by, unless action is then taken to try and negate the original intention.

As judging the outcome regardless of intent, again it's a tricky area.

Depending on the result, regardless of intent, it could be considered negligence if I do not forsee the possible implications of my actions.

 

[Rylot]

Usually intent is judged more harshly but outcome and what actually happens is important as well. It's the difference between premeditated murder and manslaughter.

 

[Meatman]

Thanks for the replies so far guys, and I agree with everything said so far.

I do know that intent is taken into account in legal situations, but what I'm wondering is why there are benefits for doing so?

Edit:
100th post
Not bad for my 2nd anniversary here...

 

[Meatman]

Well, obviously all legal decisions are not entirely based on the outcome of an individuals outcome, the intent of an action is also taken into consideration.

Drawbacks of taking it into account are that, obviously they can lie about it "Oh I didn't mean to do that".

Benefits (or strengths) of basing ethical values on outcome are that it is easy to measure them, if you know what I mean?
I'm wondering why we take intentions into account.


I know I'm not very good at explaining, so sorry about that

 

[Kolby Jack]

I usually judge by intention. Mistakes are easy to understand because we all make them. As long as you learn from it I won't hold it against you. Hell, I remember when a guy ran over my dog when I was a kid. That was one of the saddest days of my life, but I know the guy didn't set out to assassinate her and he wasn't drunk, so why would I hold it against him?

I do think though that even if you make a mistake and shouldn't be blamed for it, you should still apologize. That's just common courtesy.

 

[SoopaSte123]

Judge the action from the outcome and judge the person on the intent. Actions don't have motives.

Is it a good action to help an old lady mow her lawn? Sure. Are you a "good person" for doing it? Not necessarily... depends on your intent.

Is it a good action to help an old lady mow her lawn even though you're just doing it because you're hoping she'll write you into her will and then keel over and die? Still yes. Are you a "bad person" for it? Perhaps, but the action is still a good one.

And really, your actions and their outcomes are what affect people, not your intentions. Your intent counts very little.

 

[Professor_Page]

This is very touchy. the road to hell is paved by good intentions as they say. so judging purely on intent is ignorant, like the case of the parents who beat there child to death because they believed beating children and praying with them during it was the right way to do things. but then you have the other thing people say: kill one person and you are a murderer, kill a thousand and you are a terrorist, kill a million and you are a conqueror. basing your conclusion on just outcome is terrible as well. terrible things have been done that made a good outcome. think on hiroshima and nagasaki, those werent military targets but they did end a war and save many more lives then they took. but does that not still make it a terrible thing in the first place? this is something where there must be middle ground you cant base anything fully on intent or outcome. there must be balance.

 

[Aerosteam]

I tend to judge an action through intent.
If someone was to say they were planning to kill a group of people but accidentally saves their lives, it won't matter if he saved them because he wanted to kill them in the first place. If someone wanted to save a group of people's lives but they die, it won't matter to him if they end up dead as long as he wanted to save them in the first place.
Sometimes an outcome can't really be controlled, but an intent can.