What matters more, intention or consequence?

[Lark]

Nope, not directed at you, more of a general comment. I do think that empathy and theory of mind go hand in hand. Both are present in any healthy older child or adult, both develop at about the same time and there is a wide variety of intenity among the healthy population (meaning there are perfectly healthy people with little empathy and theory of mind and people who score highly on both but most will be somewhere in between.

I think this is were the social character theories of people like Erich Fromm come into their own, or sociological theorising with respect of personality traitology, I definitely think that currently there is a validation and valuation of low or no empathy traits and/or character.

For instance I can say that last time I was at the book shop, just last week, I saw a total of four or five pop psychology books which dealt with sociopathy or psychopathy, one was a tell all story by a successful female CEO, one was a semi-autobiographical book seeking to instruct individuals who conform to a sociopathic or psychopathic personality profile, two others were from clinical practitioners who had a lot of dealings with psychopaths. I didnt see any books which dealt with "normal" personality or empathy and not in the conscious or unconsciously "promotional" way the other books did.

Although why society needs this social character I'm not sure, Fromm suggests social character is largely unconscious but constructed by virtue of the fact that society needs people to want to do what they effectively have to do anyway because force alone is insufficient to achieve the desired results. He suggested that the main personality types were hoarding/receptive, exploitative, marketing. Maybe the zero degrees of empathy deal is a subsection of one of those or a new innovation.

 

[Coriolis]

If you understand why someone acts, you can accommodated them and their behavior. It is a question of mercy vs justice.

A man steals bread. What he did is obvious. Strict liability ideas would say throw him in jail. Justice is served.

But the man has 5 starving children. He lost his job and can't find another. His wife is deathly ill. There is intention.

Judges hate sentencing guidelines and strict liability because they like to find that nuance, the meaning in action.

So, I would argue why matters more than what.

Ex.

Man shoots another man, killing him. There is the what.

Man was defending himself and his family from a home invader with a gun.

The why changes everything.

Intentions matter. Even consequences (a dead body) may not matter given the intent.

Cold, strict action, consequence is devoid of meaning.

Now, the dead guy will still be dead, but how we deal with his killer is all about intent.

For the examples above to make sense as you describe, you have to ignore important parts of the picture. In the first - the man stealing food - punishing a thief is generally regarded as just. I would argue, though, that in a just society, parents can provide for their children through lawful means. The judge invokes mercy to correct for the original injustice. If it did not exist, there would have been no crime, and no need for mercy.

In the second case, there is a second, unmentioned consequence, namely preservation of the family's safety. We can follow the motivations back as far as we like: perhaps the home invader was seriously wronged by the family man and wants revenge. Perhaps he is mentally ill and not thinking straight. In any case, he is dead, and the family is safe. No amount of whys changes either of these facts.

Do you think it's possible to figure out a motivation working backwords from a consequence?

One can try, but this usually just leads to speculation and assumptions, unless the person responsible for the action expresses his/her motivation honestly and accurately. I suspect that much of human misunderstanding and discord arises from making incorrect assumptions about the motivations of others.

Intention matters more. The person with good intentions is more likely to prevent bad consequences overall. The bad consequences are by accident or ignorance. Whereas the person with bad intentions will likely cause more bad consequences in more situations.

You are pinning the importance of intentions on the consequences they are likely to lead to, once again pointing to consequences as having greater importance.

 

[Tellenbach]

Consequences are more important because they impact others. Intentions are fine as long as you keep them to yourself. What the world doesn't need are a bunch of busy body do-gooders messing up other people's lives because they have good intentions.

 

[Eilonwy]

Speculation:
Consequence matters more. Intention comes in when assessing responsibility and accountability, so it's not that it doesn't matter, but I think it is secondary to consequence. Consequences teach us. Intent is a product of what consequences have taught us in the past. If we focus totally on one or the other, then we don't grow.

ETA: It's a process. Focusing on the parts of the process, without taking the whole process into consideration, might lead to inaccurate conclusions. This ETA might be pure BS on my part. Intuition at work.

 

[nonsequitur]

How has this not made it into the thread yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development

 

[HungerGames]

I was hoping we could talk about motivation, intent, action, and consequence without resorting to reductive, easy, and obfuscatory terms like narcissism, sadism, or evil.

Does anyone ever not act from a place of good intention, or not assume they're doing the right thing? What makes an action wrong or bad? If what makes an action wrong is that someone is harmed by it, does the intention of the person who carried out the harmful action matter? What matters more, the intention of the person not to harm or the fact that a person was harmed? Can a person even be harmed by someone who did not intend to do harm? Does anyone ever intend to harm?

Hey i am also INFP. and i am a bit naive and therefore stupid-courageous. once information is learned it is hardly unlearned. so i am trying to preserve my naiviety like preserving "virginity". ... and the thing is you seem too smart for me, and that is not bad. because i have a good heart and faith can move mouintains and that is exactly what i am, faithful.

 

[tkae.]

In general, intention is what matters more because it's deliberate and conscious. You can even argue that we have no control over any consequences since we have no control over the relationships between cause and effect, that we only have controls over the causes that we think will bring about effects. That's another discussion though.

In general, it's better to mean well and fuck things up than to mean badly and things work out. For example, Jimmy Carter did a pretty shit job as president, but he meant well. Hitler, on the other hand, did a very good job as a leader. You can see how well that worked out.

How has this not made it into the thread yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development

For the record, I'm Stage Six if that matters.

 

[Coriolis]

In general, intention is what matters more because it's deliberate and conscious. You can even argue that we have no control over any consequences since we have no control over the relationships between cause and effect, that we only have controls over the causes that we think will bring about effects. That's another discussion though.

Such a perspective denies the entire basis for scientific inquiry, namely that through experiment and observation we can understand the world well enough to make accurate predictions about what will happen. In very many cases, we can do exactly that.

Using this yardstick, I am perfectly justified in pointing a loaded gun at you and pulling the trigger, since I have no way of knowing whether it will fire correctly, or my aim will be off, or you will move at the last minute, etc.

 

[magpie]

In general, intention is what matters more because it's deliberate and conscious. You can even argue that we have no control over any consequences since we have no control over the relationships between cause and effect, that we only have controls over the causes that we think will bring about effects. That's another discussion though.

In general, it's better to mean well and fuck things up than to mean badly and things work out. For example, Jimmy Carter did a pretty shit job as president, but he meant well. Hitler, on the other hand, did a very good job as a leader. You can see how well that worked out.



For the record, I'm Stage Six if that matters.

Technically though, Hitler had what I would assume were his own good intentions. The consequences of his actions were that millions of people were tortured and killed.

In a way, I'm sort of done with this thread, though that doesn't mean people can't keep discussing it. Consequences do matter, even just on their own. You don't have to hold anyone responsible for a consequence to matter. Consequences matter because they're reality. They're events, they happen. What people intend or don't intend doesn't stop them from happening, though it can help us view things from an intender's perspective and decide how we want to relate and respond, if possible.

 

[great_bay]

What matters more, intention or consequence?


Why can't we have both? Why exactly does the distinction matter in which matters more? OP's question is like asking which matters more, gloves or a scarf for a cold day?

 

[tkae.]

Technically though, Hitler had what I would assume were his own good intentions. The consequences of his actions were that millions of people were tortured and killed

As far as I know his intentions were good for a select few (i.e. his people), with intent to make as many others he felt victimized by suffer. His political opponents, the Allies who caused Germany's depression, the Jews who caused their defeat (as well as the Jewish prosecutor during his conviction), the other races and cultures who he considered to be a drain on Germany and a dilution of its own culture and success, etc.

What makes him Hitler is that he didn't go into office and only accidentally let World War II happen (like Chamberlain). He brought down worldwide suffering with the intent to take control of mainland Europe for Germany. That was his intent, and obviously the consequences weren't as he intended (since Germany no longer occupied all of Europe).

Such a perspective denies the entire basis for scientific inquiry, namely that through experiment and observation we can understand the world well enough to make accurate predictions about what will happen. In very many cases, we can do exactly that.

Using this yardstick, I am perfectly justified in pointing a loaded gun at you and pulling the trigger, since I have no way of knowing whether it will fire correctly, or my aim will be off, or you will move at the last minute, etc.

Oh my gosh, I just deleted everything I wrote =(

Basically, if intention didn't matter then a child who was playing with a gun and shot his friend would be tried for the death penalty just like someone who plotted out a murder intentionally. Or what about a cop who accidentally discharges his gun when he tackles a suspect? There's a very unlikely chance of that happening, but there's still a perfect storm's chance. Should he be tried like it was intentional?

The mandatory logical flaw for science to make progress is that we can make significantly accurate predictions. 95 coin flips all being heads is a substantial confidence interval, yes, but it still isn't prediction. Just because that's how often a gun fires doesn't mean all guns will fire successfully. A woman survived the Paris attack because a terrorist's gun jammed. People have survived murders and bank robberies over gun jams.

Science obviously can't progress without being able to make predictions, but inconvenience doesn't make probability the same as prediction. We can never TRULY predict, we can only assume it will happen based on probability. And even if it's 99.9% probability, that's still not 100%, so control over a situation is never guaranteed. There's still a .1% chance that an accident will happen. That's why intention matters. Accidents can always happen, but an intention is always conscious and meaningful.

 

[magpie]

As far as I know his intentions were good for a select few (i.e. his people), with intent to make as many others he felt victimized by suffer.

But his internal intentions were good. He viewed his intentions as good. This isn't really a debate on Hitler and I feel wary about it becoming one but to me, an intention is only an internal process. The intention to make others suffer can be an internally good and justified intention from someone's own internal moral code. So what is making you view his intentions as good for only a select few and bad for the rest? The fact that it might cause other people to suffer? As [MENTION=9811]Coriolis[/MENTION] has been pointing out this entire time, that means you're actually putting more weight on the consequences.

 

[Coriolis]

As far as I know his intentions were good for a select few (i.e. his people), with intent to make as many others he felt victimized by suffer. His political opponents, the Allies who caused Germany's depression, the Jews who caused their defeat (as well as the Jewish prosecutor during his conviction), the other races and cultures who he considered to be a drain on Germany and a dilution of its own culture and success, etc.

How about the witch hunts of the middle ages, then? Church authorities claimed that the suffering of torture was beneficial to the accused "witches" as a means of cleansing their evil souls. Is that enough to consider their intentions good for everyone and not just themselves/their factions?

Basically, if intention didn't matter then a child who was playing with a gun and shot his friend would be tried for the death penalty just like someone who plotted out a murder intentionally. Or what about a cop who accidentally discharges his gun when he tackles a suspect? There's a very unlikely chance of that happening, but there's still a perfect storm's chance. Should he be tried like it was intentional?

That presumes a punitive view of how to handle lawbreakers. A view focused on rehabilitation and restitution understands that different measures are needed to reform each kind of offender and to prevent them from committing further crimes.

The mandatory logical flaw for science to make progress is that we can make significantly accurate predictions. 95 coin flips all being heads is a substantial confidence interval, yes, but it still isn't prediction. Just because that's how often a gun fires doesn't mean all guns will fire successfully. A woman survived the Paris attack because a terrorist's gun jammed. People have survived murders and bank robberies over gun jams.

I wouldn't risk my life on extreme long shots like this. This is the same mentality of people who waste money on lotteries. The ability of science to make predictions accurate enough for everything from construction of structurally sound bridges, to fiber-optic communications, to landing on the moon shows that this predictive ability is not a logical flaw, but an inherent and positive feature of scientific inquiry.

 

[magpie]

That presumes a punitive view of how to handle lawbreakers. A view focused on rehabilitation and restitution understands that different measures are needed to reform each kind of offender and to prevent them from committing further crimes.

Do people who "commit" accidents need rehabilitation? Isn't that punitive in itself?

 

[Coriolis]

Do people who "commit" accidents need rehabilitation? Isn't that punitive in itself?

Is what punitive? Committing an accident, or getting rehabilitation? If the accident is due to negligence or lack of skill/ability, the appropriate response would be to give the person the training or skills they need to be able to avoid accidents in future, or perhaps to get them not to participate in the activity leading to accidents.

Driving is a good example. One is more likely to cause a traffic accident if one has never learned good driving technique. Also, certain medications or medical conditions can interfere with one's ability to remain alert and in control of the car. A person who causes an accident due to such a situation may not be morally culpable, but they should still change their meds, address their medical condition, or if these are not possible, refrain from driving. If one has no such impediments but is simply reckless, careless, or even malicious, other remedies are needed to prevent future accidents. Sometimes, though, there is nothing anyone could have done to prevent an accident. Then, not only is there no moral culpability, but there may be no obvious steps to take to avoid a future accident.

 

[magpie]

Is what punitive? Committing an accident, or getting rehabilitation? If the accident is due to negligence or lack of skill/ability, the appropriate response would be to give the person the training or skills they need to be able to avoid accidents in future, or perhaps to get them not to participate in the activity leading to accidents.

Driving is a good example. One is more likely to cause a traffic accident if one has never learned good driving technique. Also, certain medications or medical conditions can interfere with one's ability to remain alert and in control of the car. A person who causes an accident due to such a situation may not be morally culpable, but they should still change their meds, address their medical condition, or if these are not possible, refrain from driving. If one has no such impediments but is simply reckless, careless, or even malicious, other remedies are needed to prevent future accidents. Sometimes, though, there is nothing anyone could have done to prevent an accident. Then, not only is there no moral culpability, but there may be no obvious steps to take to avoid a future accident.

I was talking about rehabilitation being punitive. I think it would be pretty self centered to view the act of the accident itself as a punishment for the person who commited it. But I see what you mean by rehabilitation now and change my mind. You have a different, less euphimistic definition of that term than I'm used to hearing.

 

[Florence Atley]

So I would say consequences are more important because that is our direct impact, but intentions have a big effect on consequence. Intentions are the painting and consequence is the viewer. No matter how beautiful the painting, without a viewer it has no impact. Those who ignore consequence lack intentionality. 'Ooops. I didn't mean to.' Yeah, but you didn't try that hard not to either… We won't always have the intended impact, but our intentions will still have impact. If we accidentally hurt someone, it's not our fault. If we don't learn from our mistakes, it becomes our fault.

Of course, intentions are difficult to change, so many people just don't bother and choose to live life with a half-hearted mediocre approach to most things. They rely on their intentions and give little thought to their consequences. This seems to be most problematic when the stakes are high or if the situation is complicated and needs a brilliant solution. For example, as a writer, I intend to write even when I don't really feel like it, but when I don't feel like it my writing isn't as good as when I can make myself WANT to write. Mind-games perhaps? Not sure, but my intention to do it best allows for mind-games if they achieve the intended consequence

So basically intention determines motivation and success rate, while consequence is largely the fruit of our internal labor.

 

[Tellenbach]

How about the witch hunts of the middle ages, then?

I saw something on the History Channel or A&E/TLC/Discovery about the witch hunts in Europe. Someone overlayed the geographic areas where the witch hunts took place to rye crops during that time and there was perfect correlation. The show theorized that people were suffering from rye ergot poisoning (a hallucinogen).

Matossian found that a large proportion of the trials were concentrated in the alpine regions of France and central Europe where Rye was usually grown as the staple. Also, it was in these areas that the best source of “primary” records were kept… Trials were also more common during years when the spring and summer months were usually cooler, and even more so if the climate was colder and wetter than the norm. Cooler temperatures would be more favorable for ergot formation on Rye and even more Ergot would form if the rainfall was greater.

Bread, Madness and Christianity

 

[Coriolis]

I saw something on the History Channel or A&E/TLC/Discovery about the witch hunts in Europe. Someone overlayed the geographic areas where the witch hunts took place to rye crops during that time and there was perfect correlation. The show theorized that people were suffering from rye ergot poisoning (a hallucinogen).

I had heard that much of it was motivated by property disputes - accusers trying to take over land/property of rivals by getting them denounced as witches.

 

[Eilonwy]

I saw something on the History Channel or A&E/TLC/Discovery about the witch hunts in Europe. Someone overlayed the geographic areas where the witch hunts took place to rye crops during that time and there was perfect correlation. The show theorized that people were suffering from rye ergot poisoning (a hallucinogen).



Bread, Madness and Christianity

I had heard that much of it was motivated by property disputes - accusers trying to take over land/property of rivals by getting them denounced as witches.

Why not both? Rye ergot poisoning causes hallucinations. Either the person having the hallucinations thinks someone is a witch and accuses them, or someone having hallucinations is accused. Consequences ensue. Greedy people see how they can use this to enrich themselves, start accusing people for gain. One didn't necessarily lead to the other. Greedy people have been around forever. Rye ergot poisoning effects could have been used to justify what was already happening. Complex systems! So much fun.

To make this post somewhat on topic:
Serious question--where does intent come from? Is it innate? Learned? Other?