(Disclaimer: This is another old post of mine and my thinking on this topic has evolved, but I do believe it’s an important post)
Introduction
Ethics is a messy field, fraught with misunderstanding. In this post I’d like to discuss how we make ethical judgments, and more specifically I would like to discuss the importance of intent in those judgments. The first major doctrine defending the importance of intent is The Principle of Double Effect, which argued that there are differences between intended and foreseen consequences. I intend to present an example that demonstrates why the ignorance of intent actually leads us to not ever being sure someone is acting ethically.
Developing an Ethical Framework
To understand what “acting ethically” means we should develop a framework with which we can understand what ethics IS. This framework should be sufficiently broad to allow for all normative ethical theories to exist within it, as the framework itself has nothing to do with determining right from wrong.
A psuedo-decision theory framework can do the trick. We can posit it as such:
When an individual is presented with a situation in which he must make a decision, he is aware of a given set of the possible options (since few people are ever aware of all the possible options). For each of these options, he foresees certain consequences happening. A quick note: the probabilities of consequences happening change from before the decision to after the decision. Imagine this example:Both a murderous doctor and a genuine doctor are aware of the fact that during the complex surgery they are performing later that week, there is a chance for a catastrophic mistake leading to the death of the patient. The genuine doctor is aware of this consequence, but intends to avoid it (even if he cannot know he will avoid). The murderous doctor is aware of this consequence and intends to make it a reality. After their decisions (avoiding vs embracing) the probabilities of the catastrophic “error” occuring is different in each situation.Back to the framework though. We have an individual in a given situation in which they must make a decision, aware of a set of options in which certain consequences can be foreseen (for example, throwing a brick at someones head tends to harm them, even if this time you threw it at a kid and knocked out a bully and therefore what you did was “good” — more on this later). How do we determine if the individual is acting ethically?
Rules.
Basically, we can say that an individual is acting ethically if he/she is acting in accordance with a rule or set of rules that determine right/wrong. This is sufficiently broad to encompass all theories, even if it appears it would only work for consequentialism. Deontology for instance can be put into this framework by claiming that these rules are absolute and therefore it is infinitely and limitlessly better to follow the rule than not to. Which means that the importance of following the rule drowns out the importance of any other consequence, meaning it becomes the only consequence that matters. While it discusses consequences, I argue this still isn’t consequentialism, but rather a framework of ethics based on decision theory. (You could always just insert the word “outcomes” for “consequences” but thats just playing semantics).
The Shortcomings of Modern Ethical Theories
The two predominant ethical theories in the modern world are consequentialism and deontology.
There are two major variants of consequentialism I will deal with today:Judging based on actual consequences (what actually happened in the real world following an action)Judging based on foreseen consequences (the tendencies of an action to lead to certain consequences, regardless of what happens this time).
The failings of the first doctrine are readily apparent. It relies on a kind of moral luck. If the murderous doctor and genuine doctor both end up killing the patient, are they equally evil? Or is it that the genuine doctor may have made a mistake (and might be a bad doctor) but is still a good person? Whereas the murderous doctor is a bad person but may actually be a good doctor depending on how complex the surgery was.
The superiority of the second doctrine comes in to play (and is apparent) with the “throwing a brick at a kid” example. If I throw a brick at a kid, it is likely that I intended to hit the kid with a brick. But if it just so happens that this time, the brick I threw collided with a bully who was going to bully that kid, I actually saved the kid from getting bullied. But I did not foresee (or intend) for that to be the case. No rational individual throws a brick at someone saying “I’m doing this to interfere with some unforeseen potential threat to this person” (lets not get too extreme with counter examples).
So we now are left with foreseen consequences. And deontological arguments can still fit within this foreseen consequences field (since it can fit within the ethical framework based on decision theory which we built), so this critique encompasses both consequentialism and deontology.
Is there something wrong with this theory though? There is an illusion that must be dealt with: In many thought experiments and in real life from the perspective of the decision maker, intention and action are united. One cannot cleave intention from action in any rational individual. By definition, there is always a reason why a rational individual acts (even if they lie to you about what that reason is). The illusion emerges when we don’t consider ethical judgment. There is a difference between guiding action and judging action from an outsiders point of view. As in, while I know why I made a decision, it is not possible for someone else to know why I made that decision with 100% accuracy simply by observing the consequences of the decision. In other words: consequences underdetermine intention which means simply observing the consequences of an action and whether or not they follow a moral rule X is not sufficient to determine if the actor intentionally followed the moral rule or if they simply incidentally followed the moral rule. Let’s look at an example to better understand this.
The Kids and the Apple
To better understand the distinction between intended and foreseen consequences, let’s take a modal example of an action:
2 schoolkids (Kid A and Kid B) stand in line. Kid A is in front of Kid B. Kid A steps up to the fruit section. There is 1 apple left but 10 oranges left.
4 possible worlds. In all 4 possible worlds, both Kid A and Kid B have an equal preference for apples over oranges. Kid A is aware Kid B has a preference for apples over oranges. Also, Kid A knows that if he takes the last apple, it is likely Kid B will be disappointed. In all 4 possible worlds, Kid A foresees the potential consequences of taking the apple and of leaving the apple, and these consequences have the same probability between worlds.
Worlds 1 and 2: Kid A leaves the apple
Worlds 3 and 4: Kid A takes the apple
There is already a clear distinction between the worlds 1 and 2 vs the worlds 3 and 4. Disregarding the actual effects we can note that in worlds 1 and 2 it’s likely Kid B will be disappointed and in worlds 3 and 4 it’s likely Kid B will be happy (we aren’t focusing on Kid A yet) and that Kid A foresaw these outcomes when deciding the action.
But is there a difference between worlds 1 vs 2 as well as between worlds 3 vs 4? Let’s add some variables.
World 1: Kid A leaves the apple because he knows Kid B also likes apples and although A prefers apples, he’s okay with an orange.
World 2: Kid A leaves the apple because he knows Kid B also likes apples and he hopes Kid B will thank him and tell other people Kid A is a good person
World 3: Kid A takes the apple because he prefers apples and he feels bad that Kid B can’t have the apple but A really wants the apple
World 4: Kid A takes the apple because he knows Kid B also likes apples and he wants to deprive Kid B of the apple
Here we see the problem of actual consequences underdetermining intent. From the perspective of Kid B immediately following Kid A’s actions, it is impossible to wholly determine Kid A’s intentions (as in: Kid B cannot know if he is in world 1 as opposed to 2 if A leaves the apple, and B cannot know if he is in world 3 as opposed to 4 if A takes the apple). Simply observing the consequences is insufficient to determine intention.
Now, let us imagine we have a rule regarding selflessness. As in “put others before yourself (without being unreasonable of course)”. Clearly leaving the apple is the best option. But we see an issue here:In world 1, Kid A left the apple because he knew Kid B would appreciate it. He did it to make Kid B happy. He thought of someone else. He was selfless.In world 2, Kid A left the apple because he knew Kid B would appreciate it AND would THEN tell people A was a good person. A wanted to be praised. That was his final intention. He was selfish.
What we see is that only world 1 is the world in which Kid A follows the rule properly. But from Kid B’s perspective, if A leaves the apple, he cannot be certain he is in world 1 where Kid A is selfless and following the rule intentionally or in world 2 where Kid A is selfish and following the rule incidentally.
I would argue this intentional vs incidental distinction is extremely important. For someone to be ethical means for someone to act in accordance with the ethical rules; but it is more than that. Someone has to intentionally act in accordance with the ethical rules. They cannot be pursuing some other thing and just so happen to do what is right, even if they foresee that pursuing that other thing will lead them to incidentally following the rule. Following the rule should be (and in fact must be) the primary intention for an action to be ethical.
Another Example Regarding Intentional vs Incidental Outcomes and Rule-Following
What if we think about a criminal being sentenced to jail. A judge foresees that the criminal has a family, perhaps even a family that relies on the criminal for money and by extension food and shelter. A judge knows that sentencing the criminal to jailtime will harm the family. And yet, the judge’s sentencing of the criminal is not (hopefully) with the intention to harm the family. The judge’s intention is to punish the criminal. While he foresees the harm done to the family, he does not intend it.
Conclusion
Throughout this piece we have explained the failings of consequentialist and deontological ethics by demonstrating how they fail to determine whether or not an individual is actually acting ethically. The only way to determine this fully is to include intention as an aspect of judging an action. Throughout our examples of the Kid with the Apples and the Judge and the Criminal, we determined that there must be a distinction between intended and foreseen consequences. Therefore, the Principle of Double Effect was at the very least, on to something. And we can safely argue that intent remains extremely meaningful within ethics.
