I have issues with every choice, which I will propose to you right now.
Before I do so, I should define each
Intention - This is what the person wants. It is an idea, and it is not represented by any physical means. A "good" intention is one that agrees with current social paradigms; a "bad" intention does not.
Method - This is they physical form of one's intentions. A "good" method is one that successfully and efficiently carries out one's intention. A "bad" method is one that either doesn't achieve the intention, or is just a morally incorrect way of achieving one's intention (eg intention to own a car - steal a car is a morally incorrect method)
Result - The final snapshot of the situation after all's been done and said. It ignores what has been done during the Method if the Result does satisfy the Intention.
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What's your morality?
Out of these, choose the most important.[Results / Intention / Method]
What's your morality?
Out of these, choose the most important.[Results / Intention / Method]
Sick of trying again and again? Click here to go to the End.
Results
Now choose the second most important.Results > [Intention / Method]
Intention
Now choose the second most important.Intention > [Results / Method]
Method
Now choose the second most important.Method > [Results / Intention]
Results > Intention > Method
Let's have a student who brings in a set of notes into a test. But a teacher decided to sit near to him in the hall, and so he doesn't end up using his notes.The result is that he doesn't end up cheating and does the test with as much knowledge as he was capable of previously. And hey, he didn't ace it but he did a little bit above average.
His intention, which apparently is not as important, was that he wanted to succeed.
The method for achieving his intention was quite flawed. Instead of putting his head down and studying, he wanted to achieve it through immoral means. But hey, his intention and the result weren't bad, were they?
Or would you like to reconsider?
Results > Method > Intention
One person saw a bouquet of flowers that she really liked. They were expensive as hell (lets say $120 a dozen). Now her boyfriend noted this, and on her birthday, bought her a dozen of these flowers. She was overjoyed and took them home. Now it turns out that contains an allergen that affects only a few few people, and most blood tests don't test for this due to the rarity of the flower. But it turns out the girlfriend's mother is actually allergic to this, and as soon as she touched the flower she went into anaphylaxis and then later passed away.Is this boyfriend a bad person because her mom died?
The result is undeniably a bad one - the girlfriend may have been happy for the 20minutes, then very fucking sad because her mum, like, you know, died.
The method was a neutral one. Buying a girlfriend something for her birthday is a stock standard method, and really doesn't affect anything.
The intention, however, was in all the best. He wanted to make her as happy as possible, and he did that by remembering what flowers he liked. But... intention is not as important as results and hence the girlfriend should dump him instantly?
Or would you like to reconsider?
Intention > Results > Method
Now this one resembles Hitler. His intention was pure - he wanted to make Germany the best country in the world.Now the result of this was that Germany was a feared military power, unemployment actually went down in Germany. The Nazi's basically founded Volkswagen, which is a company that now owns Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, SEAT, and Škoda marques and the truck manufacturer Scania.
But the method, supposedly the least important, only involved the death of like, a few millions Jews. No biggie, right? The intention and result were undeniably good. Which is my issue with this model.
Or would you like to reconsider?
Intention > Method > Results
A person tries their hardest. Always. They always want to do the right thing, but often they try too hard. If they spot anyone in trouble, they will do the best in their ability to try to do the right thing. Unfortunately they are not always trained properly to perform the said "right thing". One day a guy is hit on the head and is unconscious. Our person who tries their hardest all the time, launches into CPR. Because that is what you use on unconscious people, right?Well as you may or may not know, if you use CPR while someone's heart's still beating, you end up killing them even worse than if you just left them alone. Obviously our try-to-please-you person didn't know that, and ended up accidentally killing the previously concussed guy.
The intention was clearly to help as many people as possible.
The method is to use the most appropriate type of resuscitation known to our dude.
But the unimportant thing is how our person killed the concussed guy due to his own ignorance.
Is it truly unimportant that the concussed guy died because of our clumsy person, our would you like to reconsider?
Method > Results > Intention
If a man wants bad things and achieves bad things, but does it in somewhat moral ways, it is okay?If a man wants to kill people, and kills a lot of people, is it okay if he joins the Army to do it?
Keep in mind that this guy doesn't care about his country, the honour, making his family proud, or even getting laid. He just wants to kill lots of people because he finds it fun, but he joins the Army to do that.
So the method is joining the Army to enable the result of killing many many men. This satisfies his intentions of killing many people just for the fun of it.
Is he a good person, or would you like to reconsider?
Method > Intention > Results
If a manager always appears to be lazing about, chatting with his workers and not doing much work, but somehow his branch manages to turn out the largest profits, with few people taking paid leave, etc, should he be fired? His method seems counterintuitive to his intention of gaining high profits, but the results speak for themselves.His method seems and, in actual fact, is pretty shit by common people's standards. But somehow he manages to churn out good results. But since his method is more important than the results that he manages to produce, he should be fired. Is this true, or would you like to reconsider?
End
Despite my issues with all of them, I still believe that Intention > Results > Method is my favourite one. This does mean that I find Hitler's actions acceptable. However before anyone gets pissed I'd like to point out that
On 18 December 1941, the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler met with Hitler, and in response to Himmler's question "What to do with the Jews of Russia?", Hitler's replied "als Partisanen auszurotten" ("exterminate them as partisans").[209] The Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer has commented that the remark is probably as close as historians will ever get to a definitive order from Hitler for the genocide carried out during the Holocaust.[209]I am most likely still misinformed about Hitler, but it's not the point at the moment, so can we please not discuss this :L
I just want to say that my favourite one is Intention > Results > Method.
Now I want to know which one you like and why =)
Or, if you have a scenario that refutes a certain outcome better than the one I gave, I'd love to hear it too =D
6 comments:
I'm a virtue ethicist, where does that put me?
I think it's perfectly fine if a person wants to kill people but does it in a "moral" way by joining the army. It just means the army gets a fearless soldier who shoots the enemy. Who cares if their intention is to kill people instead of protecting their country? The end result is the same - the enemy dies/is defeated whatever
Anon of 9:55
That might work in principle, but in practice:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maywand_District_killings
well intention by default has to come first because with no intention, theres no method and results. intention is the idea that sparks all fo it.
logic and mental stability over all?
@anon2
"I think it's perfectly fine if a person wants to kill people but does it in a "moral" way by joining the army. It just means the army gets a fearless soldier who shoots the enemy. Who cares if their intention is to kill people instead of protecting their country? The end result is the same - the enemy dies/is defeated whatever"
You seem to have bought the media portrayal of the Army as "point, shoot, kill, win".
It is, in fact, working as a team to avoid detection which is the basis of most operations.
Opening fire (and hence drawing fire) is only a last resort when contact is inevitable.
Shooting a lot of the enem does not win the war. It doesn't even win the battle. It just draws fire, kills people from both sides, and fucks up morale.
@anon4
That's not the point. It's not chronologically based, it's importance based. Let's say in the process of building a house, the first thing you need is ground. Without the ground you can't have a framework, or a house. But, once you have the ground (eq of intention), you can also build the framework (the method) and finally the house (the result). But a prospective house-buyer will not consider the importance of the framework and the ground - they will care about how many rooms and toilets it has. An architect doing a case study will probably care about the framework the most. And a surveyor would care about the ground. Different people, different perspectives. But undeniably the house cannot happen without the framework. Which cannot happen without the ground.
@iamatinafish
That's great but the question can definitely be answered without resorting to abstracts.
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