Intention

Notes

It sounds obvious to say that doing good things can only come from having the right reasons. For example, people who are kind would probably give to charity, people who are caring would be a good friend/parent etc. Perhaps all it takes to be a moral person is to follow the right reasons, to have good intention, to respect people's rights and your duty as a moral human being Deontology.

However, we see that not only that people can sometimes fail to act well even if they have good intensions Akrasia, but also that they can do good acts without the right reasons. For example, a wealthy organization that gives to charity for PR purposes and tax benefits, could we say that what they are doing is immoral? What about a person who donates his kidney because he really really enjoys the appreciation he gets from being a doner Signaling, would that donation be immoral as well? That's a very difficult claim to make. Seems like the morality of a person has to rely on the consequences of his actions and not just their intentions to be moral is to act moral.

While intention alone is nothing without Agency, aka the power to act on your intentions, it's still an essential part of what it means to be a moral person. While it's not a sufficient part of it's own, it is often what gives us the Intrinsic Motivation to continue to do good things, while those who act well without intention might one day stop just because they feel like it.

Meaning that even though people act the same, we trust more those who have good intentions, because we know they do it for the right reasons, and won't try to take advantage of us or abandon us. They can be fully transparent about the reasons behind their actions. They are not led by hidden motives

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Overview

🔼Topic:: Ethics (MOC) ↩️Origin:: 🔗Link::