Brief reflection shows us that, while this model is on
the right track, it is still incomplete.
Consider the following scenario: a father kills a boy for teasing his
son at school. Is this action morally
justified? Certainly not. The problem is that the established model
cannot condemn it. After all, the
father’s virtuous intent is inherently good: he intended to protect his son
from further vexation. And it is
probably true that he would not have intended to kill the boy if he had not
teased his son – the intent to kill was circumstantial. Because the virtuous intent is good, and the
bad intent is merely circumstantial, the model cannot condemn this
counterexample. We see that it needs
more work.
For what reason might the father be condemned? For starters, we know that, while his
virtuous intent is morally commendable, his circumstantial intent is blown out
of proportion. Its intensity is not
scaled to the intensity of the actual circumstances. A crucial insight can be gleaned from this
observation: the circumstantial intent of a man is not guaranteed to match the
actual circumstances with which he is faced.
It is precisely this potential mismatch that makes this action
unjustified; the father was clearly reacting in a way that the actual
circumstances did not warrant. Thus we
see that, given that the virtuous intent of an action is good, lack of
justification results from the gulf between the scale of the actual
circumstances and the scale of the circumstantial intent.
What possible flaws can occur in a circumstantial
intent? There are two: I call them the
problem of arrogance and the problem of ignorance. We have already looked at a situation in
which the circumstantial intent was founded on arrogance; the circumstantial
intent of the father defending his son was arrogant. In the case of arrogant intent, the moral
agent in question knows the circumstances completely, yet reacts in such a way
that the circumstances do not warrant.
Let’s apply this to our central situation: the case of the husband
defending his wife from the robber.
Let’s say that the robber was unarmed and, upon having a gun pointed at
him, immediately put his hands up and began walking towards the nearest exit of
the house. If the husband had shot him
then, his circumstantial intent – the intent to kill – would be an arrogant
one. There was clearly no need to shoot
the robber after he was clearly and submissively walking away (assuming no
other special circumstances were present besides these).
In the case of ignorant intent, the moral agent in
question does not know all of the circumstances involved, or else misinterprets
them, and so may act in a way that the actual circumstances do not
warrant. Suppose that the husband did
not put his glasses on before going to engage the criminal. The criminal points a water gun at the man in
an attempt to intimidate him. The
husband mistakes it for a real gun and shoots him. Had the husband known that it was merely a
water gun, he surely would not have shot the criminal. Nor should he have done so, since clearly the
amount of danger posed by a water gun does not warrant murder as retaliation.
We hasten to point out, however, that in the instance of
ignorant intent, the moral agent is not morally culpable for their
actions. Not unless they are responsible
for being ignorant, in which case they are guilty of carelessness, and that is
about it. In this case of the husband,
he is not responsible for his own ignorance; we should not expect him to be properly informed about what the criminal was
holding because he was not wearing his glasses, it was nighttime, etc. We could fault him for forgetting his
glasses, but since it is not immoral to forget one’s glasses, the husband
remains morally justified. That said,
people have a responsibility to inform themselves about the circumstances involved
before making a moral decision. If there
is reason to believe that they did not do their best to inform themselves about
the circumstances they were facing, while we would not consider them guilty
specifically for what they had done, we would consider them guilty of
carelessness, negligence, etc. Consider
a man on a subway who accidentally trips someone upon stretching his legs
out. If, at some point in the near future,
he stretched his legs out again and tripped someone again, while we would not
consider him guilty of tripping that man, we would probably consider him guilty
of carelessness.
So we see two possible flaws in the circumstantial
intent which might overturn the justification of a given morally questionable
action. Annexed to our old model, this
new model now looks something like this:
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