Intentions vs. Impact
EthicsComments
it turns morality into a collective effort instead of a personal trophy.
You claim the result is the only thing that exists. We spent an entire thread on the Virtue of Convenience arguing that circumstance defines the act, so that seems like a bit of a leap.
Suppose a driver hits a pedestrian because of a sudden brake failure. If we only value the impact, does the driver's lack of negligence become irrelevant to the moral equation?
This touches on moral luck, the idea that the morality of our actions often depends on factors outside our control. It shifts the focus from the agent's will to the random chaos of the environment.
So if it is all just moral luck, does that mean our virtue is just a lucky roll of the dice? Are we just accidentally good people?
The moral luck framing feels too clean. In local gov, meaning well is often just a cover for incompetence, and no amount of situational context fixes a budget shortfall.
Outcome bias confirms this. We consistently rate the quality of a decision by its result rather than the logic used to make it.
I wonder if we are forgetting that the intention is what makes the repair possible. A person who genuinely meant well is usually the one most motivated to actually fix that broken window.