Intent or result?

[j1j2j3]

Inspired by the reckless driving teenager thread in off-topic.

Do you focus more on intent of actions or result of actions in a moral sense?

I'm sure many of you have driven 80 mph on public roads. Is this as bad or less bad as killing someone because of crashing while doing the above.

No middle ground here; no saying that you could have been more responsible by making sure your car was properly maintained or anything.

Let's just say that A drives around at 100 mph just to race. B drives around in an identical car with identical maintenence with the same intent of racing and both have identical driving skills. By some freak act of nature B's car flips and crashes into another car killing someone.

Is A just as bad as B? less so?

Also I'm sure this could be an analogy for quite common things in life. If you have children do you punish them for doing something potentially bad or do you punish them only when something bad happens? Do you punish them the same amount?

Please cite both the moral argument and how you behave yourself.

[j1j2j3]

I for one think that A is just as bad as B. Of course unfortunately only B gets in trouble in soceity.


I also try to maintain the same standards when I have to be the judge. But I do find myself not being able to impose the same standards. In short : I try, but I rarely judge them the same.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Intent and result both matter.

In the case you gave, the intention is to cause harm. That ought to be dissuaded and criticized precisely because such an attitude or behaviour is likely to lead to, in practice, harm.

I can take a swing at you with a butcher knife. I might miss, but my intention was malevolent and vile. That I didn't hit you and lop your head off OJ style doesn't mean I am not immoral.

The consequence matters certainly, I think most, but looking at the intention can give you information about the person's character or virtue. People of certain virtue and character are often less "good" to society. Intentions to harm are not praisworthy because they usually lead to situations which harm or put people in danger.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Edit: Damn double post!

How bad the action will be depends on the chance or likelihood of causing harm to others.

[j1j2j3]

I can take a swing at you with a butcher knife. I might miss, but my intention was malevolent and vile. That I didn't hit you and lop your head off OJ style doesn't mean I am not immoral.

But the sentences for attempted murder and murder are different are they not? So how would you dish out justice?

[Vendetta]

Both.

In your scenario, A should be charged with speeding, (here that means three points on the license, reach 12 and it's suspended for a year), and B with causing death by dangerous driving, which is a prison sentence.

A has proven himself incapable of conforming to the conditions society has decided for retaining appropriate control of a motor vehicle, B has caused actual harm whilst doing so. There is a distinction between the two, but both should carry a social penalty.

(in my personal opinion, speeding should carry a sharper penalty, because most people simply don't care enough about the first or second three points. An instant short term suspension would be a better shock to their system)

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Well, I misunderstood you. I didn't realize, and it's my fault, that you were speaking of legal sanctions. I was talking about merely a moral sanction.

I would punish someone who attempted to kill someone just the same as someone who carried it out. The intent was to cause harm, death, etc. The consequence is bad, yes, and it matters most, but he knew his actions would have lead to that, and it's highly likely it would have.

I would assume that punishing a serial killer who attempts to serial kill would serve as a good deterent just as punishing the serial killer who succeeds. Their crimes are fairly similar in moral reprehensibility.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

I don't know what is wrong with me today. I apologize for my carelessness in posting.

The type of sanction should also be dependent upon how good the deterent will be, and what is the minimal punishment necessary to fulfill the deterent or separate the individual from society.

A punishment should be directed at the consequences, the intent to do a consequence, and the likelyhood that someone will succeed in leading to a consequence.

Often, it is difficult to pinponit the consequences to an action, so Utilitarianism often advocates sanctioning or critiquing the likelyhood of harm level.

But mentioned briefly above, the punishment should reflect how likely it is the person's actions would have come to the harm, the harm, and the likelyhood of recidivism.

[The Guid]

I tend to focus more on intent. However I wish to point out that negligence becomes part of intent in my book - even though intent is not quite the right word for it.

For example accidently shooting somebody on a rifle range is a bad thing because you were not taking the neccessary precautions - and you intended not to.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, if a guy has good intentions but ends up causing a manatee to fall on you, it's worse then an evil person evilly stabbing your hand with a plastic fork.

[Darth Wong]

Negligence is a form of intent. When a drunk driver gets in his car, he is intentionally putting every other driver on the road at elevated risk, simply for his own convenience.

Outcome is also a factor, in the sense that social deterrents should be scaled to the level of observed damage in society. For example, drunk driving kills roughly as many people as murder in the United States every year. Yet the penalties for drunk driving are relatively insignificant ... why? If one's objective is to prevent loss of life, then why shouldn't the deterrents be scaled to the number of lives being lost?

[Exonerate]

Well, if a guy has good intentions but ends up causing a manatee to fall on you, it's worse then an evil person evilly stabbing your hand with a plastic fork.

It is? While you could probably argue intentionally stabbing somebody with a fork is morally reprehensible, I'm quite sure getting pancaked by a manatee would do more damage to you. I don't think intent should be ignored, but there's a certain point where the outcome outweighs intent. It might be fair to say a person who accidentally kills another isn't as immoral as one who intentionally does so (Assuming no circumstances like self-defense, etc), but between an intentional death of one and the accidental deaths of ten, I think most would agree the accidental deaths inflicted more harm.

[Darth Wong]

Even terrible outcomes may be forgiven, however, in cases where something is a complete accident. Suppose somebody is driving along normally, hits some black ice, loses any control of his vehicle (that's what happens on black ice, in case you've never experienced it), and plows into a pedestrian; someone is dead but you cannot accuse anyone of either malice or negligence.

Where "intent" is overrated as a determinant of guilt is when people intend to be negligent rather than malicious.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, if a guy has good intentions but ends up causing a manatee to fall on you, it's worse then an evil person evilly stabbing your hand with a plastic fork.

It is? While you could probably argue intentionally stabbing somebody with a fork is morally reprehensible, I'm quite sure getting pancaked by a manatee would do more damage to you. I don't think intent should be ignored, but there's a certain point where the outcome outweighs intent. It might be fair to say a person who accidentally kills another isn't as immoral as one who intentionally does so (Assuming no circumstances like self-defense, etc), but between an intentional death of one and the accidental deaths of ten, I think most would agree the accidental deaths inflicted more harm.

Which is why I said that accidental death-by-manatee is worse (as in badder, more damaging) than evil-plastic-fork-stab.