# How important are motivations when judging the morality of an action?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-motivations-when-judging-the-morality-of-an-action/645715>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [December 31, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-motivations-when-judging-the-morality-of-an-action/645715 "2012-12-31T21:56:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 4

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**Author:** ![Spiritus\_Mundi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c68b51/32.png) [@Spiritus\_Mundi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiritus_Mundi)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-motivations-when-judging-the-morality-of-an-action/645715/61 "2013-01-03T20:28:17Z")

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I think you two might be running into a question because you are focusing on only one side of the evaluation. From my perspective it is not a question of “bigotry is less wrong than jaywalking” or any similar formulation. It is: outlawing bogotry requires limits to freedom of expression that I find diminishes the social good rather than enhancing it. It is more of a social cost/benefit analysis for the “rule” under consideration rather than a comparison of “how wrong is X relative to Y”?

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**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\
**Post date:** [January 3, 2013, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-motivations-when-judging-the-morality-of-an-action/645715/62 "2013-01-03T20:53:48Z")

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> [@Human\_Action](#):
>
> So in criminal terms, crime against the individual is worse than any crime against society. In moral terms, crimes against society can be worse than some crimes against individuals. Correct?

No, I don’t think so (for the first statement), possibly (for the second).

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**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\
**Post date:** [January 4, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-important-are-motivations-when-judging-the-morality-of-an-action/645715/63 "2013-01-04T16:22:39Z")

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> [@Spiritus Mundi](#):
>
> I think you two might be running into a question because you are focusing on only one side of the evaluation. From my perspective it is not a question of “bigotry is less wrong than jaywalking” or any similar formulation. It is: outlawing bogotry requires limits to freedom of expression that I find diminishes the social good rather than enhancing it. It is more of a social cost/benefit analysis for the “rule” under consideration rather than a comparison of “how wrong is X relative to Y”?

That is another way to look at it, but it’s not the moral consideration, more like public interest.

I’d say that bigotry is morally wrong, but not nearly on the same plane as non-victimless crimes.

> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> No, I don’t think so (for the first statement), possibly (for the second).

Oh. I’m lost, then.

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