Asking here because I don’t think this has a concrete answer… (or maybe it does? Please let me know if there is one!)
So a lot of times good people do good things and bad people do bad things… but what if someone with malicious intent unintentially improved the world? Or vice versa, someone with all the right intentions but made things worse for everyone
I guess this can be applied to a lot of politicians, but the question isn’t based on any real-life events
If you’re interested in further reading, the terminology for what you’re describing is:
deontology (based on the action itself)
virtue ethics (based on the intent)
consequentialism (based on the outcome)I would argue that there’s no such thing as “good” people and “bad” people, nor even actions that are inherently good or bad themselves. Someone is, in my opinion, “good” if I feel more positively than negatively about the culmination of their actions, intents, and results.
To be clear though, my opinion on this is unpopular lol
Thanks! You put this better than I could. I was thinking that this has to be something philosophers have figured out or at least seriously investigated… I will look into these concepts
IMO this is the asklemmy community and I came here asking for opinions so… I think your opinion is quite valid
Based on what they try to do. Negligence can be bad of course, but making honest mistakes is no ones fault. If they’re doing harmful things though, even if they can still be considered a good person, it can be a moral obligation to stop them.
Actions. I know too many people who ‘really meant to’ do that awesome thing but somehow never got around to it.
You’re walking down a busy street while texting. Oops! You stepped on a kitten! Is it animal abuse? Intention is (almost) everything because it suggests what you would do if you had the means to do so, or if you felt you could get away with it.
Results first. Actions second. Intent third.
You can say your intent is anything and I’ve got no way of verifying this.
You can take good actions that make the situation worse. If noone warned you about the consequences I guess I can’t blame you.
If the result is a net positive I won’t complain too much. Even if you said you’d solve global warming by making fun of orphans and somehow made that work I’d quietly grumble about there must have been a better way but be happy that I don’t have to deal with it.
Both, but on the condition it’s a bit more nuanced than that. Are we talking matters of culture shock, accidents, misunderstandings, a failure of restraint, things you regret later, things that sounded good at the time, things done under duress, things done while drunk, things meant to be humorous, etc.? Some things are circumstantial as opposed to up to any human factor, and these are more able to be looked past. But I’m also not going to yield every time someone who is drunk does something they typically wouldn’t do when sober.
Intentions, of course, since they indicate how someone is likely to behave in the future. Even if you end up causing harm while intending to do good, that doesn’t lead me to expect you’ll continue causing harm. But the opposite is true if your intention was to cause harm. This holds true even if no actual harm was done - the fact that someone intended harm says a lot about them.
Intentions, assuming their intentions are sincere… cause in that case, it’s just a mistake if it doesn’t work out.
Both are based upon rationality, which is always broken.
I prefer aesthetics/feeling-of-rightness.
