Intention & Results of Our Actions

Intention may be seen as a kind of desire. A desire for some result which is, or is thought to be, within one’s power to produce.
Typically, statements about intentions give to the question ‘Why?’ the answer… ‘In order that’…

It is widely thought that praise or blame is due not so much to the results of our actions as to the intention with which they were performed:
It can be said holy intention is to the actions that which the Soul is to the body.

The king of Assyria did not intend to carry out God’s judgment on Judah;

Isaiah 10:5-7 (New King James Version)

⁵ “Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger
And the staff in whose hand is My indignation.
⁶ I will send him against an ungodly nation,
And against the people of My wrath
I will give him charge,
To seize the spoil, to take the prey,
And to tread them down like the mire of the streets.
⁷ Yet he does not mean so,
Nor does his heart think so;
But it is in his heart to destroy,
And cut off not a few nations.

On the contrary, his only intention was to destroy and pillage; and therefore, though he was in fact God’s instrument, he in turn would be punished.
Conversely, someone who meant well, but whose intentions did not in fact work out, may be excused, even praised.

Ezekiel 33:9 (New King James Version)

⁹ Nevertheless if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul.

Cases of accident, or of actions done in ignorance, are special instances of the absence of intention, and hence of the inappropriateness of the praise or blame that might otherwise have attached to them.
Our language contains in fact a number of quite subtle distinctions between such notions as ‘intentional’ and ‘deliberate’; or, equally, between ‘unintentional’, ‘accidental’, and ‘inadvertent’.

These seem to refer to different ways in which intention may be present or absent, but in most cases the nuances are unlikely to be of great moral importance.

There are, however, certain qualifications which need to be made to the above.

1. Someone whose good intentions do not work out may well be blamed, not indeed for deliberately producing the unintended results of his or her action, but for failing to foresee that they would occur.
(In Eng. and US law this principle is simplified, and one is presumed to intend the ‘natural consequences’ of one’s acts even if in fact they were not intended.
Mens rea, ‘a guilty mind’, is required for criminal guilt, but may take the form of recklessness or negligence as well as of malicious intent.)

2. A result may actually be foreseen and still not be intended.
If I drive from my home in the suburbs to the centre of the capital city, I may well foresee that I shall encounter a traffic-jam, but it would be nonsensical to say that I intended this to happen.
Therefore, there seems to be a ‘middle ground’ approach to what can be construed as intentional and unintentional.

This becomes important in considering the idea of a ‘double effect’, where one particular result of an action is intended, and another (undesirable) one is foreseen though not intended; the agent is clearly responsible for the latter’s having taken place (it is not ‘unintentional’) but can hardly be said to have brought it about deliberately.

3. Whether an act was intended may depend very much on how we describe the act, for intention rests not in the act itself but in the mind of the agent.
Thus, the authorities in Jerusalem certainly intended the execution of Jesus; equally certainly, they did not intend to execute the Son of God.

Acts 3:17 (New King James Version)

¹⁷ “Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

1 Corinthians 2:8 (New King James Version)

⁸ which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

Although there were not two separate actions, the action could be described in more than one way, and the description ‘executing the Son of God’ did not occur in their thoughts.

4. Intention is relevant only to judging the moral worth of the agent. It is of no use in deciding between possible courses of action.

The question ‘Was A right to do such-and-such?’ is ambiguous.

It may mean ‘Did A choose the correct course of action?’ (where intention is not relevant) or it may mean ‘Ought I to think well of A?’ (where it certainly is). And I cannot escape the duty to weigh the rights and wrongs of alternative courses of action by telling myself that my intentions are good.