Adolf Hitler fell in a river and nearly drowned when he was a child. He was heroicly saved by another boy, but the question is, did the boy do the right thing? On one hand, saving young Hitler resulted in World War 2 with 70-85 million deaths or 3% of the World’s population at the time.
But the boy never had any ill intentions and only ever intended to save another helpless boy’s life. So in judging actions that the boy took, we must ask; whether it is more important to look at what the boy intended, or instead to look at the resulting situation caused by his survival?
What is more important when judging the actions of the boy? His intent or the result? by the end of this speech, you will have heard both perspectives about intent vs result and you’ll have the information required to form your own informed opinion.
One argument that can be proposed for the result of a person action’s being more important than there intent is the harsh reality that only the result will matter in the long term. for example if person A is driving their car and does not intend to hit person B but he is hit, it does not matter that person A never wanted it to happen person B stills gets hit by a car.
The reality is the results don’t only affect you, they affect everybody around you. this means that the consequence’s of a person’s actions are irreversible and they can create unintentional effects on other people.
This is why more importance should be placed on the result of a person’s action as they force changes onto other people without their control, and once something has happened, the consequences are irreversible. therefore to judge a person’s actions one must only look at the result.
However, of course, assessing somebody only on the result of their action’s does not show the thought’s and intentions behind the actions of the people in question. For example, if somebody were to actively plan to harm someone else and then for some reason fail to do so, it would be completely illogical to asses the person as safe or normal because the result of their actions is that target is safe.
It is unreasonable to come to this conclusion. this is because it poorly follows what we as humans perceive to be justifiable, as their intent shows there nature more clearly. this also means that unfortunate mistakes or conscious decisions are seen and interpreted as what they are to give a more accurate and unbiased view on a person’s actions.
So in judging a person’s actions by looking at their intent, you would be able better understand the nature of their actions.
So what is more important in judging the actions of a person. their intent or the result. if you ask me both have their strengths and weaknesses. for example, judging somebody by the result of their actions would mean people would be treated harshly or leniently according to the consequences of their actions.
But this means unintentional consequences are treated the same as conscious decisions which can result in over the top responses for genuine mistakes and intentional wrongdoings could be treated as minor errors.
In regards to judging a person’s actions on their intent, it is very useful for understanding the motivation’s for their actions and the nature of them. this prevents genuine mistakes from being misinterpreted for deliberate action.
But the problem is that even genuine mistakes should carry certain repercussions as it would be wrong not to correct mistakes that severely affected other people. so my opinion is that to correctly judge a person’s action’s a combination of both the result and their intent is required with a bias towards their intent.
This is because the shortfalls of both can be overcome with appropriate use of the other. however, there should be a minor bias towards their intent due to our human nature of mistakes and imperfection. the bias would allow a little leniency for the genuine mistakes that are part of human nature.
In conclusion, I believe neither intent or result are more important in judging the actions of a person. instead, to correctly judge the actions of a person it is best to take a combination of their intent and the result of their actions.
this prevents judgements from being over the top or too lenient as the combination of using both the result and the intent to determine the severity of their actions integrates the human element of intent and the reality of results into the decision.
Such as a Judgment in court, a consensus of the jury is required for any action to be taken. the same is true for deciding which basis is more valuable for judging a person’s actions.
What would you value? If you were a member of a jury. And a case was put in front of you where a person t-boned a bus at high speed and killed 10 people inside unintentionally. Would you decide that the result of killing 10 people is the most important factor, and rule that the driver is a murder?
Or would you look at the drivers intent and decide that they never wanted this result and therefore they can not be held accountable in any way to the 10 deaths. Or do you believe a mixture is required for a correct decision? Where on the scale do you believe that the importance should be placed?