We know that intent is important legally.
I argue that it is important morally as well (you’ll often notice that
what we know and agree on regarding morals is portrayed by the legal process of
the United States), and that it provides a way in which we can decide whether
or not a questionable action is morally justified. But besides the affirmation of intuition, is
there any practical, rational reason we should think that intent is so
important? I think that there is.
You’ll notice that,
if a man intended to do what he did, then he can be counted on to do it
again. If a man intended and succeeded
in tripping you, it would not be far-fetched to think that he would do it again,
to you or anyone else. But, if someone
tripped you simply by accident, you could not
count on him to do it again. It is
circumstance, not the man, who is at fault; he did not know that stretching out
his leg at that precise moment would lead to what it actually lead to. If he was careless, then he is guilty of
carelessness. But he remains morally
excused on the count of tripping a perfect stranger for no good reason.
Now we relate these
concepts to justice. Consider the
following scenario: an armed robber breaks into a man and his family’s
home. The husband, after the robber
threatens his wife, shoots and kills the intruder. Is the husband justified in his actions? To find out, let us analyze the intentions
involved. In this particular scenario
there are, in fact, two intentions: intent to kill and intent to protect. He intended both to kill the robber and to
protect his wife.
It can be further
discerned that there is a hierarchy to these two intentions. There is, what I like to call, a virtuous intent and a circumstantial intent. The virtuous intent is almost completely
independent from external events, and will not be changed by the mere drop of a
hat. A cold-hearted killer intent on
killing someone is not going to have that intent swayed in the slightest by
circumstances of any kind; except, perhaps, in the rare event of extensive
rehabilitation. His intent to kill is a
virtuous intent. A circumstantial
intent, on the other hand, is wholly dependent upon external, rather than
internal, factors. A driver does not intend
to swerve over to the right until the circumstances show him that he must do so
in order to avoid a collision. The
intent to swerve over to the right is a circumstantial intent.
Virtuous intent and
circumstantial intent are always paired together; in the case of the driver,
his circumstantial intent to swerve to the right is paired with his virtuous
intent to avoid a collision (since he would always intend to avoid a collision
regardless of the circumstances). It is
also notable that virtuous intent dominates circumstantial intent in that only
virtuous intent can tell us what someone can be counted on to do. In the case of the driver, you could not
count on him to swerve to the right for no good reason. On the other hand, you could, within reason,
count on him to avoid a collision, and you could count on him to serve to the
right insofar as it was necessary to avoid a collision. The circumstantial intent is overshadowed by
the virtuous intent.
With this
information in mind, we return to the husband shooting the robber
scenario. We know that he has two
intents, but which is the virtuous intent and which is the circumstantial
intent? In order to uncover the answer, we
ask the man a simple question, “If circumstances had allowed, would you have
protected your wife without killing the robber?” It he answers “yes”, and his answer is
truthful, then you have just found out which intent is which. Notice in passing that, if the circumstances
had been different, the man would not have intended to kill, but he still would
have intended to defend his wife. The
intent to kill was dependent upon the circumstances; the intent to defend was
not. Thus, the intent of the man to
defend his wife was the virtuous intent, and the intent of the man to kill the
robber was the circumstantial intent.
So the man can be counted on only to protect his wife,
and only to kill people insofar as it is necessary to protect his wife. He cannot be counted on to kill any more than
the driver mentioned two paragraphs up can be counted on to swerve to the right
at the drop of the hat. Since what he
can be counted on to do is ultimately good, and he cannot be counted on to do
evil, he is ultimately a hero (though that sounds a bit exaggerated). This is one way, then, through which we can
decide on the justification of a morally questionable action: if the virtuous intent of an action is
itself morally commendable, whatever else occurred or whatever other intents
are involved, that action is itself morally justified.
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