In a recent pit thread, Diogenes made a comment that got me thinking:
, which got me wondering.
Is it morally right to want to do something because it will benefit people in general, or because it is the right thing to do, but not if one is doing the action for pure selfishness?
Is wanting to execute someone because it would be just right, but wanting to execute them because the blood is so pretty wrong?
I don’t think so. I think that since we can’t actually judge why people do what they do without being them, it’s not worth the effor to try, and we should focus more on what is done than why people want to do it. What do the rest of you think?
In an ideal world, we are judged by our actions alone. But the fact of the matter is that we kind of rely on our willingness to punish others so we can maintain order.
It’s very difficult to set up hard-and-fast rules by which various rights are weighed against one another - hence the very fine line between murder and execution.
In which case, motivation would become very important were it not for the fact people justify things in a miriad of ways, and often after the event.
I think, in summary, I don’t know. But that’s never stopped me add my tuppence worth before…
Cheers.
I don’t think I understand why you say that executing is meant by killing someone because you like the blood is not something that you could percieve as being wrong.
So I guess that you find torturing because you like to hear people scream and you like the blood and pain is also something absolutely normal?
Or what is the difference between executing someone because “you like the blood” and torturing someoen for the same reason(s)?
Of course the motivations matter. If you and I are trapped on a mountaintop and I have to kill you for food, I don’t know that I would really call that immoral. Unsavory, yes. Immoral, no. And there are all sorts of other situations that might mitigate the immoralness. Saving my own life, saving someone else’s life, etc.
But I’m not talking about differing circumstances. If you’re on a mountaintop and have to kill me for food and also want to kill someone for fun, would you killing me for food be morally worse than someone who didn’t want to kill me killing me? From my perspective, I’m just as dead.
Let’s say that you’re a a sociopath who enjoys killing people. Let’s also say that you are a clever sociopath, and thus are employed by the justice system as an executioner. Does the fact that you enjoy killing people make it more wrong for you to do so than someone else?
Motivation most certainly does count. Punching someone for fun is wrong. Punching someone to prevent that person from hurting someone else may be excusable, and is most certainly not as heinous.
Actions are devoid of moral content. Only the intention and motivation are indicators of morality since they are a direct result of the moral choice. I can fail to murder someone in fact, but it is clear that my immoral decision has little to do with what in fact occured, only in what I intended.
If I am just wasting time, throwing rocks over a small wall, or say on a roof, from a distance we would not immediately say this is an immoral action. But what if a child was on the other side of the wall, or a worker was on the roof, and I hit them? Well, that’s certainly a problem, but does this mean the action was ill-advised because of its consequences or is it moral because of my intention?
The only issue with this otherwise clear division is that intention and motivation can only be discerned by action.
I personally see things more from a behaviorist’s viewpoint.
If the rationale is not disclosed then it doesn’t matter.
Opinions should be taken at face value and there shouldn’t be tut-tutting when an unterior motive is also available.
I may greatly care about my motive when I punch you in the nose, but you probably care more about my punching you than what my motive was.
Motive-centered (I punched you in the nose because I thought you were the Anti-Christ) accounts of morality are self-centered accounts of morality. They are morality concerned with goodness of character and cleanliness of conscience.
Rights-centered (did I have the right to punch you in the nose in self-defense or retribution?) and consequence-centered (I punched you in the nose to keep you from driving drunk and hurting yourself) accounts of morality are more other-centered.
Me, I’m torn.
On one hand, I think that a being that doesn’t have motives isn’t a moral being. Without motives, there’s no free will, and without free will, there’s no moral agency.
On the other hand, motive-based ethics seem so profoundly self-centered to me.
I think I’d say it depends on what you’re going to use morality and ethics for.
In politics and in interactions with people you don’t know well, rights-based and consequence-based ethics are the way to go. Someone who doesnt’ know you can’t infer much about your motives, and even if they could, they would have no great reason to care.
In personal/familial interactions, motives play a larger role.
Erk. My example of consequence related thinking was rather bad, since it involved a very heavy dose of motive.
I should be more like:
I punched you in the nose, which will hurt you. Good consequences A and B will likely flow from this, as well as bad consequences C and D. What’s the balance of all that?
The problem with consequentialism is in a few things. Where does the chain of causality end? Since we fail to account for intention, anything that can be shown to have a direct causal impact can fall under the blanket of immorality. For instance: how do we distinguish an accident from negligence from hostility? Is this not a useful distinction, even though the consequences are the same? And what about the consequences of those consequences? Where do we begin to account for the causal chain, and where do we end? More importantly, does it matter if the person knew the consequences? (If so, have we really gained anything over intentional act forms of morality?) Does it matter if anyone could have forseen the consequences? (What if no one knew what would happen?)
I have no problem with assigning some form of accountability based on consequences, but morality itself seems to avoid such a container.
I’m confused as to what you mean by morality in the last sentence. If morality is a tool for choosing from alternatives for the purpose of living, does this not imply that a knowledge of consequences must be considered? The only question is what consequences are more important (and therefore more worthy of attention) than others.
Maybe I don’t understand the term “morality”. We aren’t talking about a specific laundry list of forbidden and permitted actions are we?
To tie this to your las post, what is an intention except a desire for a particular consequence? If consequences have no moral value, how do you segregate intentions?
Of course. That is what we intend, the consequences. But the important thing is that raw consequences do not yield sufficient information to distinguish self defense from homicide, road rage from a pothole, and so on.
You mean how are they determined? In simple actions we really cannot. In more complicated actions there becomes a pattern of behavior. If I intend to kill someone by poison, I may stalk them (with the intention to know when they might be alone so I can kill them as I also intend), acquire poison, have told friends how much I dislike the person, and so on and so forth. The intention is constant and creates a pattern of behavior that can only be reasonably explained by the intention itself.
No, I think you are misunderstanding my question. Or perhaps my inelloquence is hampering me again. I realize that you have to infer (as opposed to prove) intentions in others by their actions. But this is not as necessary in ourselves. And I am more interested in forming moral structures for myself rather than to judge others.
You said that “morality itself seems to avoid such a container[consequences]”. My question is how can you judge your own intentions if not by judging the consequences that they imply or (within some range) that they actually lead to?
If we choose some standard of morality (human life for instance) then why can we not judge consequences and intentions by that same standard? If I intend to live a better life, but act in a way which hinders that, then to some extent, I can be said to have acted imorrally. I suppose that the exception to this would be the case where no reasonable person could have forseen the hinderence. Meanwhile, if I intend to kill myself, but succeed in discovering a new way to cure depresion through medicine, I could still be said to have achieved a moral outcome by an imoral action.
In short, most versions of consequentialism focus on assessing what effects a reasonable person would suspect, weighted by probabilities. Motive has no direct relevance to a hard-core consequentialist, except insofar as it may affect policies of deterrence. (e.g. people are killed both by murder and by traffic accidents. Because we think the motivations for these different types of deaths are different, we will implement different policies to deter them.)
As far as how far along the causal chain we go, I think most consequentialists would say we need to make some empirical assessment of probabilities weighted by magnitude.
Yes, consequentialism makes large demands for empirical information, both about actual states of affairs and for how those states of affairs are subjectively valued by those affected by actions. But at least the demands for information are things that most people care about.
But motive-based ethics make large demands for information on the subjective motive of those acting. Just as much as consequentialism makes unrealistic demands for subjective valuations, motive-based ethics make unrealistic demands for motives.
Suppose I’m member of the Spanish Inquisition. (Nobody expects…) My motive is to save souls rather than bodies. If I have to torture people to get them to accept Jesus, so be it. At least I’ve saved their souls. Motive-wise, a member of the Spanish Inquisition is morally equivalent to someone whose motive is to save souls, but who attempts to teach by example, using non-violence, charity, poverty, etc. In fact, Torquemada may be more moral than Saint Francis, if (say) he believes that he’s sacrificing his own soul for the good of others, while Saint Francis only uses methods which don’t endanger his own soul.
Again, motive-based ethics are self-centered. They are navel-gazing ethics for people more interested in the purity of their conscience or ‘Self Actualization’ than in helping or not harming others. To paraphrase the Utilitarian assessment of deontology, they are egoism on stilts.
Same same, unless you’re particularly keen on double standards (and, leaning towards consequences, I don’t see how you could be). But I do see what you’re getting at now.
You can’t, of course, but if something goes wrong, where can you place the blame except the thought process that caused action in the first place? If we wish people to make moral choices, then the problem is in the choosing. This is not to say consequences don’t have various positive or negative values, of course, but it is a rare case (I can think of none) where moral views end with consequences. Deterrence, rehabilitation, reasoning: all these focus on moral agents’ perspectives and intentions.
HayekHeyst, we’ve got to keep bumping in to each other like this, people will start to talk. Hopefully I won’t descend into defending myself against you and pervert in this thread, too! But let’s move on.
Here’s the problem with subjective valuation: it is just as open to criticism as any other subjective quality, like intention. Once you open the floodgates there is little gained but inconsistency by trying to cherry pick what you like. MHO.
Which is why I shy towards intention and not motive. My motive is almost always survival, but how I intend to survive is where the interesting parts lie. Intention is the bridge between motivation and consequence. We value consequences for various reasons, but do not consider always that the ends justify the means—what else could allow this but a focus on intention? Here is where I would resolve the apparent contradiction you see from the other thread. We often intend the very actions we perform, but do not intend some of the results of those actions. That is, people making a better profit intend to simply make a better profit, they (largely) don’t intend to drive others into bankruptcy (except in moves towards monopoly). The key factor is in unintended consequences. It is the difference between accident and design. I feel that, as a society, we distinguish this quite well in our legal system. Do you disagree? On this topic you indicate,
I would suggest that it is not possible to impliment this strategy without adjusting moral opinions based on intention. You give an example of trying to deter traffic accidents differently than murder, but this is just as easily explained by an appeal to different categories. With consequentialism, does vehicular homicide fall under a traffic accident or a murder? Can we answer the question without intention?
Of course they are! I am a moral agent expected to make moral choices. How can I do this without introspection of any kind?
To put my two cents into the pervert and erislover’s discussion, I think I’d say that moral and ethical philosophy play (at least) two goal, personal and political.
Pervert asserts
As far as personal morality/ethics goes, I think this is all good. And even in political morality/ethics, I think we we’re more anxious to worry about externals (rights and duties, consequences) than about internals (intentions, motives.) At least in a free society, people’s consciences are nobody’s business but their own. But their actions (if they interfere with others) may be something we’re legitimately interested in. Judging the moral worth of our fellow-citizens isn’t (IMHO) appropriate, but worrying about their actions and the consequences of those actions is.
I’d think that political morality/ethics would have to be based on the common denominator of personal morality/ethics. Political morality/ethics would have to be underdetermined (in a mathematical sense) relative to personal morality/ethics.
Now, erislover brings up the difference between motive and intention.
I agree that our legal system attempts to assess and deal with issues of intention. I’ve never sat down and thought about the relationship between motive, intent, rights, and consequences.
My very provisional and off-the-cuff response would be that focusing on intent seems to be a compromise between motive-based reasoning and consequentialism. Essentially, it seems to be consequentialism limited to primary, direct effects. As you say, the key factor is unintended consequences. Would it be fair to say that intentionism is expected first-and-direct effect consequentialism?
If so, I would say it’s inadequate. Suppose I’m married, I’m on a business trip, and I see a woman in a bar who’s just been abandoned at the altar. I approach her, tell I’m in town for one night only, that I’d like to take her out and show her a good time. My intention is to cheer her up, to affirm that she’s desirable and she doesn’t need that bum, and possibly to have some fun myself. We end up sleeping together. The whole episode reenacts her abandonment by her fiancee, increasing her misery. And eventually, my wife finds out, divorcing me, traumatizing our children, etc etc.
To point to the Stanford Philosophical Encylcopedia again: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-virtue/
Virtue-Ethics (similar to the intention-ethics you’ve hinted at) emphasizes the need for practical wisdom. That is, the wisdom of how the world works, what sorts of consequences are likely to follow from what acts, etc. Running around with good intentions but nary a clue is irresponsible. You can’t just focus on your intended consequences and not worry about your unintended consequences.
Me, at heart, I’m a deontologist. I’d say it was wrong not because I had bad intentions or because of the unintended consequences, but rather because I’d betrayed my wife and possibly exploited the jilted woman’s vulnerable state. Even if nothing but good consequences flowed from it, the betrayal of my wife was still wrong.
Hopefully I won’t descend into defending myself against you and pervert in this thread, too! But let’s move on.