[nettneu]

	Originally Posted by Tactical Panda
	What and to what extent do 'good intentions' justify?

Justify to whom? If you need to justify something to someone, that implies that you have some sort of relationship with them, and it would be the characteristics of that relationship which would determine the grounds on which and the contexts in which something could be justified. For example, in British law, there are certain things whose possession is illegal regardless of the intent for which you possess them, and in that case intention can't be a justification. But there are other potentially illegal acts for which it can.

Or are you thinking of some sort of moral justification to oneself? But then it depends on what sort of morality you subscribe to. There are certainly some sorts in which intentions can provide justification, and others in which they can't. But for me personally the question wouldn't even make sense - I don't feel any need to justify things to myself.

[Tactical Panda]

	Originally Posted by nettneu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Justify to whom?

To you.

Or to me.

Or to a reasonable third party.

They are just suggestions. You can pick something other, if you think the challenge validates the time invested in voicing your argument.

[nettneu]

	Originally Posted by Tactical Panda To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	To you.

I already covered that above ...

	Originally Posted by Tactical Panda To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Or to a reasonable third party.

... and explained why that would require knowledge of the relevant relationship with the third party.

	Originally Posted by Tactical Panda To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Or to me.

I don't really have enough knowledge of you either, but from the internal evidence of the first post, I suppose I could suggest the following: suppose the child had, through no fault of his own, misunderstood the warnings and fully believed that people whose greater knowledge and experience he had good reason to trust were advising him that chicken bones were good for dogs?

[RBM]

Originally Posted by nettneu To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

I already covered that above ... ... and explained why that would require knowledge of the relevant relationship with the third party. I don't really have enough knowledge of you either, but from the internal evidence of the first post, I suppose I could suggest the following: suppose the child had, through no fault of his own, misunderstood the warnings and fully believed that people whose greater knowledge and experience he had good reason to trust were advising him that chicken bones were good for dogs?

The thread has been muddled up sufficiently in this thread, accurately reflecting the OP.

The above is one path out of some of the muddle. I'd go farther to get out of the muddle by focusing on the source of the intent. Any other 'reasonable party' or similar, has no part in the consideration, in spite of the OP's approach to the issue. The implication in the OP is tied to the classification of 'bad things happen to good people' which is just another perspective of
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.

Once this is recognized, it's quite simple to see what's important and why.

So, from this the child has gotten 'two for one' lessons - first on chicken bones and dogs, secondly on people he trusted. Such a DEAL !

Good Luck All.

[Tactical Panda]

Don't mistake a simple, goofy example for the deeper, serious issue.
Or do.

The issue of the dog and the child is quite simple.
It is to provide an inadequate but small taste to the real issue.
Merely addressing the small example would unlikely address the core issue.

The issue isn't "solve the problem of the child and the dog".

The issue is "what and to what extend do 'good intentions' justify?"

[RBM]

	Originally Posted by Tactical Panda To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Don't mistake a simple, goofy example for the deeper, serious issue. Or do. The issue of the dog and the child is quite simple. It is to provide an inadequate but small taste to the real issue. Merely addressing the small example would unlikely address the core issue. The issue isn't "solve the problem of the child and the dog". The issue is "what and to what extend do 'good intentions' justify?"

Ahhh, yes, thanks for the reminder. You want to consider 'intent' with a small 'i'.

I was answering from the consideration of 'Intent', with a capital 'I':

We will begin with the simplifying concept that intent (with a lower case i) will be our nomenclature for “normal, little picture, sense”, for the motive force of the individual at the intellectual level and that Intent (with an upper case I, as the big picture sense) is the motive force of the individual at the being level. This effectively adopts the convention as developed on ... some other ... Bulletin Board to clarify the usage. Purpose carries the connotation of a goal, an objective, a specific result. Intent may have these characteristics but does not have to. Intent may have no specific purpose; it may be just the active expression of a being. Likewise, Intent can be determined but does not have to be.

Adios.

[Tactical Panda]

Originally Posted by RBM To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

We will begin with the simplifying concept that intent (with a lower case i) will be our nomenclature for “normal, little picture, sense”, for the motive force of the individual at the intellectual level and that Intent (with an upper case I, as the big picture sense) is the motive force of the individual at the being level. This effectively adopts the convention as developed on ... some other ... Bulletin Board to clarify the usage. Purpose carries the connotation of a goal, an objective, a specific result. Intent may have these characteristics but does not have to. Intent may have no specific purpose; it may be just the active expression of a being. Likewise, Intent can be determined but does not have to be.

I'm going to treat that convention as optional rather than some sort of abosolute law.

[Purgatid]

If the individual has access to information that would avoid the bad consequence, or if the person has the ability to get the information is expending energy, and if the person is able to utilize said information, then good intentions does not remove responsibility.

So, in the example:

* If the kid has been told chicken bones might kill the dog, then he is still blamed for the death of the dog.
* If the kid has no reason to suspect that chicken might kill the dog, then he is not responsible for the death of the dog.
* If the kid is mentally handicapped but has been told chicken might kill the dog, he is not responsible.

Only when the kid both has the information, the ability to get the information, and is able to make the assessment, is he responsible. Otherwise not.

[RBM]

	Originally Posted by TacticalPanda
	I'm going to treat that convention as optional rather than some sort of abosolute law.

Are you referring to the notational methodology ?

I was actually more interested in the content. You seem to be limited to a narrow line of dialog, so you don't address the actual content.

Oh, well.

[Yardy]

Originally Posted by Tactical Panda To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

For instance, using a terrible means to create a terrible means under good intentions. As an opening example to help desribe the sort of problem in this issue: a child who disobeys others warning to feed his or her pet dog chicken bones for the sake of the dog's happiness, which results in the dog choking and dying. Now up the initial ante perhaps from dog to people in some similarly bad means, bad ends situation and let the discussion begin.

Good intentions, if those are meant to mean believing one is doing the best, most right thing possible, justify everything moral and nothing practical.

If I accidentally back over ten coworkers with a power jack while thinking I backed up at the right time, then morally I'm fine. In practicality I'm still an idiot. I don't think it can be much more complex than this.

[Imperator]

	What and to what extent do 'good intentions' justify?

Nothing and none.
I beware the moral busybodies.

[The Dan Keizer]

I believe everybody that ever did anything ever had good intentions at the time.

[reginoid]

	Originally Posted by The Dan Keizer To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I believe everybody that ever did anything ever had good intentions at the time.

I make fun of fat people. As long as they're offended then my intentions were clearly met - good or whatever.

[The Dan Keizer]

	Originally Posted by reginoid To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I make fun of fat people. As long as they're offended then my intentions were clearly met - good or whatever.

Well in your mind I suppose they are deserving or whatever so your intentions are good.

[reginoid]

	Originally Posted by The Dan Keizer To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Well in your mind I suppose they are deserving or whatever so your intentions are good.

Nahhh doubt it. I'm a fat loser myself. I just don't have anything good to say to people in general.

[Seablue]

	Originally Posted by reginoid To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Nahhh doubt it. I'm a fat loser myself. I just don't have anything good to say to people in general.

Then it could be said that your behavior stems from self-hatred, which to some will make it more forgivable.

Or it could be said that being fat yourself allows you to say whatever you want about fat people, because you can't be accused of actually hating them.

I guess none of those examples are about intentions but it's about the context.

[Disillusioned]

	Originally Posted by The Dan Keizer To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I believe everybody that ever did anything ever had good intentions at the time.

Good intentions have to be met by some objective criteria. This is why intention based accounts of morality are always based on some criteria of what constitutes 'good' (for instance, Kant thought that 'the only thing that could be considered good without qualification is a good will' but one only had a good will by acting out of duty and in accordance with the categorical imperative, or the absolute moral law in it's various formulations). Otherwise you could say that a psychopath intended to murder someone but he intended it because it brought him pleasure. Was that intention good or bad? Was it good because it was an intention to bring about pleasure or bad because it was an intention to murder another person? Most people would say it was a bad intention because, for one, it's not even obvious that bringing about pleasure is always good and two ending an innocent life for one's own mild amusement does not seem to constitute 'goodness' on any moral account I'm aware of (aside from egoism I suppose, but Ayn Rand was a sociopath herself and her ethical theory is untenable nonsense).

[jdempcy]

Good intentions are part of the narcissistic illusion that allows so much vice to spread. I consider the problem of evil to come back to the ability to make proper use of judgments. When we make proper use of distinctions between what is and isn't within our power, we adopt a virtuous attitude. Vice is the improper use of distinctions: the judgment of things outside of our power to be "good" or "bad," instead of judging our very beliefs themselves to be "good" or "bad" (in the sense of virtuous or vicious beliefs).

Likewise, the opposite is also true in that it is virtuous to judge ourselves capable of doing things that are truly in our power. For example, happiness is in our power. And it is virtuous to state this truth, and vicious to deny it. I would be spreading vice were I to say "you are powerless over whether you can be happy or not." No! I'm not saying you should feel guilty if you can't "make yourself be happy" -- but happiness _is_ in your power! Also changing your beliefs is within your power, and changing the way you feel about things. These are virtuous proclamations because they assert that things that are in your power to change actually are in your power to change, rather than denying this (as so many vicious beliefs do).

Another example: the belief "mistakes are bad" is vicious. It spreads vice. It is evil. Why? Because it is an improper judgment. Mistakes are not good or bad, they are indifferent. You can apply this to any number of external phenomena that the various personality types privilege.

Drawing from Stoicism and work like the Serenity Prayer (along with Jung, Lacan and others), my take on ethics are the good intentions themselves obscure the problem. We should make proper use of distinctions and remind ourselves to view things outside of our power indifferently.

Good intentions aren't bad per se, it is only bad to rely on them as we would depend on a horse or a wall. They are not physical things to be depended on in such a way. To do so is naive. (Robert Bly has written on this very topic).

The website ptypes.com combines Stoic philosophy with personality typology theories. I have found much that jives with my beliefs on ethics there.

Gilles Deleuze has a chapter in his masterwork 'Logic of Sense' (1969), which along with 'Bergsonism' (1966) are his books I most recommend, titled 'On Good Intentions.' In it, he confronts Freud, Lacan and Klein (at least implicitly) and shows how good intentions are a discovery of the infant at age 3, where the infant is closest than ever to the oceanic/narcissistic relief from anxiety.

Tragically, we may have been closer than ever to solving the 'problem' of anxiety at our earliest ages, when we first discovered good intentions and believed in their ability to cure our parents' woes. Never again would we be so close to solving our anxiety. Forever thrown into anxiety, perhaps we continue to desperately hold onto good intentions as a stopgap before nihilism.

Deleuze quips "we are all offspring of divorced parents in our unconscious" pointing out the Oedipal embroglio and how the child's good intentions are thought to be the 'silver bullet' that will solve the Oedipal problem itself: the child feels his or her good intentions will heal the mother and evoke a return of the absent father, resolving all anxiety permanently in a state of narcissistic bliss.

Things don't go so well. Not for any of us. But we all felt at some point that it was possible to achieve this. Perhaps the drive of spiritual ascendants and drug addicts alike can be linked to this desire for oceanic bliss, for ego loss and merging with the infinite and so on. Basically, for escape from the anxiety of engulfment, of overwhelming presence (of life itself). I am reminded of UG Krishnamurti who himself lambasted good intentions on many occasions:

"Whether you are interested in Moksha, Liberation, Freedom, Transformation, you name it, you are interested in happiness without one moment of unhappiness, pleasure without pain, it is the same thing." -- UG Krishnamurti

Also, just for the lulz, here is a wonderful Bertolt Brecht poem on good intentions:



Step forward: we hear
That you are a good man.

You cannot be bought, but the lightning
Which strikes the house, also
Cannot be bought.
You hold to what you said.
But what did you say?
You are honest, you say your opinion.
Which opinion?
You are brave.
Against whom?
You are wise.
For whom?
You do not consider your personal advantages.
Whose advantages do you consider then?
You are a good friend.
Are you also a good friend of the good people?

Hear us then: we know.
You are our enemy. This is why we shall
Now put you in front of a wall. But in consideration
of your merits and good qualities
We shall put you in front of a good wall and shoot you
With a good bullet from a good gun and bury you
With a good shovel in the good earth.



source:
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[Tactical Panda]

	Originally Posted by RBM To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Are you referring to the notational methodology ? I was actually more interested in the content. You seem to be limited to a narrow line of dialog, so you don't address the actual content. Oh, well.

I'd prefer stepping back and letting the discussion unfold among everyone else on the forum who wants to participate.

You seem to be limited to a narrow line of dialog by pulling me back into it.

Too tiresome.

Let each person interpret things how they will. I don't particularly care.
Just produce something of quality rather than something superficial or insubstantial.

[RBM]

	Originally Posted by Tactical Panda To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I'd prefer stepping back and letting the discussion unfold among everyone else on the forum who wants to participate. You seem to be limited to a narrow line of dialog by pulling me back into it. Too tiresome. Let each person interpret things how they will. I don't particularly care. Just produce something of quality rather than something superficial or insubstantial.

I am 'unfolding' ! Yet, you interpret my posts as 'limited'. Hmmmm.

C'est la vie.

[The Dan Keizer]

	Originally Posted by reginoid To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Nahhh doubt it. I'm a fat loser myself. I just don't have anything good to say to people in general.

Well yeah, like the other dude said if you have such a low opinion of yourself then you can't think it's much of a sleight to make fun of others. If you do it, it has to give you some pleasure which you view as harmless so that's your good intention there.

[Tactical Panda]

	Originally Posted by RBM To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	I am 'unfolding' ! Yet, you interpret my posts as 'limited'. Hmmmm. C'est la vie.

Yep. Perspectives and all that jazz. The irony for both camps at least help keep things amusing.

And the philosophy subforum is probably a good place for such things. Just as well.

[Bisclavret]

"Good intentions" in themselves are meaningless. The action must reflect the nature of intention for it be deemed "good".

[Tactical Panda]

	Originally Posted by Bisclavret To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	"Good intentions" in themselves are meaningless. The action must reflect the nature of intention for it be deemed "good".

I think they have worth, even if that worth may not extend to meaningful justification of any sort.

[Huruma]

I don't think good intentions compensate for the badness (bad consequences) of actual decisions. I might not agree with most people on what constitutes good intentions to begin with.