What is more important, intentions or result?

I guess that's the hard part of philosophical questions. It's a mental experiment. You have to accept the facts that are given to you.

I dont know the answer. That's why I am asking. For the greater good? I'd say yes, in a second. But in that case, Yvsa, both my intentions (to save the rest) and the result (saved) would both be good, wouldn't they?

Keno
 
Sorry, Keno. First thing that came to mind.

Yeah, disregard the torture stuff. It's just a for instance, and one could substitute other questionable thing. But if you omit the word torture, you'd have my feelings about the topic in general.

Forgive my political self. I came straight from MSNBC.com that day, and that was the headline. My bad. :) :)

Chris
 
Yvsa said:
The meat of the matter is that it is an *Indisputable Fact* that he will become the head of a country and will be 100 times worse than Hitler. It is his fate and nothing anyone can do will change that except causing his death in one manner or another while he is young enough to not have any followers.
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Yvsa,

Sorry I dont' believe in "indisputable facts". I'll stick with my statements. If I push him, for what I believe he may do in the future, I'm a murderer. If it was self defense, or protecting my life, my wife, or family then I pray I would do it. For something like this, nope.
 
45-70 said:
Yvsa,

Sorry I dont' believe in "indisputable facts". I'll stick with my statements. If I push him, for what I believe he may do in the future, I'm a murderer. If it was self defense, or protecting my life, my wife, or family then I pray I would do it. For something like this, nope.
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No problem, as Keno has noted it is a philosophical question. When dealing with philosphical questions you have to stick with the facts given. It's part of the rules of the game but I do see your side and understand your point of view.

An interesting TV show I saw once, don't recall which program it was on was about a person from the future that was sent back in time to kill Hitler as an infant to prevent the Holocaust.
Hitler's parent's doted on their infant son and especially Hitler's father.
I don't remember all the details of the story but the person from the future was successful.
The nanny was beside herself as she knew she would be held responsible so she went into the back alleys and dark streets and bought an infant boy to take Hitlers place.
This boy was portrayed as being the offspring of the dregs of the earth.
Hitler's father never knew the difference and raised the boy as his own son.
In this case had the people from the future left well enough alone the outcome probably would've turned out entirely different.

And once again the intentions skewed the results.
 
munk said:
There was a movie about this- Dead Zone Book by Stephen King

munk
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That may have been the movie munk. Was it a collection of short stories? I just can't recall much except the gist of the story.
 
The result is the only important piece of the equation. We can argue about means and accomplish nothing, or we can act and accomplish something. I appreciate pre-christian pagan worldviews that understand "good" and "evil" as the social creations they are, and live by a code of honor instead of moralism. If one's intention is to make positive changes in the structure of reality, then the means are irrelevent to that goal.

-Tycho-
 
Yvsa Said,

If it's your intention to push the boy then your heart is in the right place and you potentially save millions of lives but if you back out at the last moment you have then condemned millions and the blame is all on you. Such is the way of intentions.

However if you do bring yourself to push the boy to his death then you have saved the millions and you will be remembered in history as the one person who helped to save humanity.
And such is the way of results.

Yvsa,

I'd push the little s##t. That's just me. I do not understand these two above conclusions though. Whether you pushed the kid or not his actions are not your fault. You have condemned no-one, hurt no-one and certainly killed no-one. Also how in your rules will you be remembered as anything but a raving lunatic murder? I don't see anything in the scenario that makes either of the above conclusions true. You may have saved humanity, but you will be remembered as a child killer, and if it were up to me I'd drop a car on you.
 
aproy1101 said:
Whether you pushed the kid or not his actions are not your fault. You have condemned no-one, hurt no-one and certainly killed no-one. Also how in your rules will you be remembered as anything but a raving lunatic murder? I don't see anything in the scenario that makes either of the above conclusions true. You may have saved humanity, but you will be remembered as a child killer, and if it were up to me I'd drop a car on you.
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Exactly.

As I tried to say before, if you kill the boy, then he will never become whatever he was going to be. Therefore, you are a murderer, not the savior of ka-billions.

Besides, I still say our destinies aren't fixed, we make our own ways through the world, and bear the crosses we've made for ourselves.
 
In the Dead Zone, ( the original by Stephen KIng- not the series) there was a man in a coma who came out after several years. He was clarovoyant now. His sweetheart had married another man- one who would one day go mad, and press the 'button' causing a nuclear holocaust across Earth. To prevent him being elected to office, our hero shot him. Well, he actually missed, but the newsclippings of the politician holding a baby for protection ruined his career and changed history. Our hero was killed and looked upon as a loon for his actions.



munk
 
Snip:
45-70 said:
Besides, I still say our destinies aren't fixed..
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If our destinies were fixed, then it might be your destiny to push the kid in front of the bus. But then it turns out that the kid's destiny was to get squashed by a bus, NOT to be the next evil incarnate.

That'd make you a murderer after all. Or not. Did you have any choice? Or was it just destiny?
 
Hmmm. Yvsa's question makes me think of the greek tragedies where someone would visit the oracle and find out their fate. Then the very actions they take to avoid it, cause it to come to be.

I think the greeks invented what led to our modern day horror movie where we yell at the screen "don't go in there, don't go in there!! Oh god she's going in there!?"
 
I've been thinking about this and I honestly don't know. If the action is directed toward me, then intent is probably more important to me, Toeard others, I don't know.
 
I haven't thought about this subject for about 6 years now... but I still remember what I came up with.

Intentions are important to the person performing the act, but it means close to nothing to other people since they have no way of actually knwing your true intentions.

Actions is what anyone else will see and make judgemetn on regardless of your intention. Usually if the intention as infered by somone who is judging it by the action is not in sync with the actual intention, problems can occur. A younger me whould try to explain my actual intentions to clear up the confusion, but I find this always leads to problems. Most people want to believe whatever they want regardless of the actual truth. So if a misunderstanding occurs, I just leave it at that. Much less effort, and the end results are not as bad as you would initially think.
 
Bandit5 said:
I haven't thought about this subject for about 6 years now... but I still remember what I came up with.

Intentions are important to the person performing the act, but it means close to nothing to other people since they have no way of actually knwing your true intentions.

Actions is what anyone else will see and make judgemetn on regardless of your intention. Usually if the intention as infered by somone who is judging it by the action is not in sync with the actual intention, problems can occur. A younger me whould try to explain my actual intentions to clear up the confusion, but I find this always leads to problems. Most people want to believe whatever they want regardless of the actual truth. So if a misunderstanding occurs, I just leave it at that. Much less effort, and the end results are not as bad as you would initially think.
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Well said Bandit, very well said.:thumbup:
 
Intentions are important to the person performing the act, but it means close to nothing to other people since they have no way of actually knwing your true intentions.
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True. :thumbup:

I would add that intention is also important because of the effect it has on you as the actor. Doing things with a malicious intent causes harm to you even if by some chance the outcome to the world is positive. I think this is often overlooked.

I have become much more aware of the "rubber ball" effect of my actions. Whatever I give out comes back like throwing a ball against a wall that you are standing in front of. You get back what you give out. On balance anyway, it's not always immediately apparent in a case by case basis.

on a humorous note: I saw a video on the internet where 2 thieves tried to throw a huge brick through a window. Come to find out it was plexi-glass of some sort. Brick came back and knocked out crook #1. Then the second guy tried it, and was also knocked out. I couldn't believe they both did it!:D It was one of the funniest videos I've seen, and a great live demo of instant Karma:D
 
Bandit, I like how you file away your conclusions and can still recall them 6 years later. Very well thought out too.
 
Good question
Both theories have flaws if you look at the discision making prosess that they perscribe. If you are a Utilitarian and beleive that only results matter you must act to do the most good and the least harm without sacrificing anything of comperable moral significance. If you are a Deontologist and you beleive that only intent is important then you must act and be able to 'will every action to be a universal', so if you assume every body on earth will act as you do and the result is good you have made the right discision. The Problem with ends based utilitarianism is that it holds you to an imposibly high moral standard and requires that you give away pretty much all you own to people starving to death in africa. The problem with deontology is that it only works if everyone is as good as you which many are not. For example lets say there is a famine in the congo and 5 billion dollars are needed to completly eliviate the death and suffering going on, lets also assume 500,000 people as well off as most of us are(could live without 20$ we could donate to charity). If you were a deontologist you think "I'll donate my share, 20$" and feel good about yourself. However not everyone will donate their share, many people dont give a damn about people dieing in africa. Now for a utilitarian they must, by their moral guidelines, (do the most good and the least harm with sacrificing somthing comperable) give all they own to a level of just getting by becuase it will keep people from starvng to death without they themselves starving to death. I like to think I make discisions based on the result but for me there are flaws with taking either aproch to the extreme.
 
aproy1101 said:
Bandit, I like how you file away your conclusions and can still recall them 6 years later. Very well thought out too.
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Been thinking about wiritng a book, just haven't gotten started on it yet. I have many, many more.
 
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