(Note: this is an essay I wrote many years ago that I still mostly agree with. It probably was what led to me eventually coming up with the idea of Philosophical Disorders.)
After a little reflection, it is clear that the morality of a person who carries out an action doesn’t just depend on the action itself but rather depends on the state of mind of the person who performs it. This holds for pretty much every commonly used definition of morality. Suppose, for example, that I was tricked into believing that giving money to a certain charity would help the poor when, in fact, the donation was being funneled to gangsters. Generally, Christians, Buddhists, Utilitarians, Kantians, and almost everyone else are in agreement that, although the consequences of my action were bad, I am not bad for carrying out the action because I misunderstood the action’s nature. On the other hand, if I willingly chose to fund gangsters, almost everyone would be in agreement that the action would reflect poorly on my character, even if the net result of such funding was essentially the same as in the case where I thought I was donating to charity. To give another example, there are very few who would say that a person is good for giving money to the poor merely to impress a good-looking date, whereas many would call the person good if they donated out of genuine concern for the welfare of others. Hence, pretty much however one defines ethics, there is widespread agreement that it is not our actions themselves that define how good we are, but rather the intentions underlying our actions. An action (e.g., giving money to charity) is compatible with us being a good person if the thoughts that motivate us to carry it out are considered good (e.g., a desire to help others) but may have no effect on our goodness or even make us a worse person if the motivating thoughts are considered bad (e.g., a desire to help only me at great expense to others).
What is curious is that while there is little dispute that it is legitimate to evaluate the goodness of people based on the goodness of their intentions rather than on the goodness of the consequences of their actions, many people are not willing to carry this logic out to its ultimate, somewhat startling conclusion, namely that a number of people that are generally thought of as “evil” may not really be, and in some cases, may even be “good.”
To illustrate this point, consider the hypothetical case of a person who is schizophrenic and whose delusional thinking has led him to believe that the only way to save the world from unprecedented disaster is to blow up a certain office building while it’s full of workers. If this man were to carry out this terrible act, our instincts would inevitably be to label him as evil, whereas his intentions could demonstrate that he is quite the opposite. If he not only did not want to blow up the building but was, in fact, repulsed by the idea of hurting other people and only carried out the bombing due to his mistaken belief about the action saving the world, then it seems as though he was, in fact, being genuinely good rather than evil since his intentions were very good, and he likely underwent enormous stress and effort (including overcoming his psychological revulsion to murder) only for the purpose of doing what he felt was right.
At this point, some people may object that such a person with schizophrenia should still be blamed for his bad action since he has a responsibility to act in “accord with the truth” and to verify the reality of his beliefs prior to acting. But this argument fails to take into account the experience of people suffering from schizophrenia: in some cases, they have no inkling whatsoever that they are delusional. If a person’s delusion does not seem delusional to them in the least, how can they be blamed for failing to see or question if they’re delusional?
Another objection that may arise relates to the belief some people have that “good cannot come from evil” (or, similarly, that “evil cannot come from good”), which in this context may imply that even though the mentally ill person believes that they are doing a good thing by blowing up a building, the potential goodness of their intention is tainted by the evilness of the consequences. An example can help illustrate the problem with this way of thinking.
Consider a hypothetical situation where we are forced to make the choice of pulling either one of two levers. Suppose that the first lever will lead, with a 90% probability, to the horrifying torture and death of one thousand people and with a 10% probability of us receiving one million dollars in cash. The second lever will lead, with a 90% probability, to us receiving moderate injuries and with a 10% probability of one person being subjected to horrifying torture and death. Pretty much everyone who believes in morality, I think, would agree that pulling the second lever is the moral thing to do (since it makes the torture and death of others much less likely), whereas (psychological consequences aside) it is selfishly better for the individual to pull the first lever (since, that way injuries to our own body are avoided and there is a chance at nabbing the million dollars of cash). On the other hand, if a person were to really pull the second lever, despite that being the obvious ethical choice, there is still a 10% chance that a stranger would be subjected to horrifying torture and death because of that decision. To argue that “good cannot come from evil” (in the way discussed above) is to imply that the morality of my choice depends on whether (due to random chance alone) pulling the second lever led to bad consequences. When attempting to act ethically, however, all I can do is act in a way that (probabilistically) maximizes the amount of good that I believe my action tends to do. To hold me accountable for the actual realized consequences of my action, even though those consequences could never be known to me in advance, is to effectively determine how good I am based on the random roll of a die. The implication would be that ten people could carry out the same action for precisely the same reason, and yet nine of them would be labeled good, and the tenth labeled bad, simply because the tenth was unlucky. This is a conclusion that I think few people are willing to live with.
But what are the practical, real-world consequences of goodness being based on intentions rather than actions? We have seen already that it may alter our assessment of the insane. More bizarrely, though, it may influence our opinion of the deeply religious as well. People who commit acts that (they genuinely believe) are inspired by God’s will but (according to those who do not believe in the same religion) are of a heinous and destructive nature and are very often labeled as “evil.” But in many cases, religious fanatics are absolutely convinced that their actions are “right” and even good for humankind. In such circumstances, it seems that “delusional” would be a fairer label to apply than “bad.” Going a step further, it seems likely that many extraordinarily good people who devoted their lives to doing what they knew was right were, in fact, doing great harm because of false religious or spiritual beliefs. Take, for example, the case of Christian witch burners, some of whom must have genuinely believed that by murdering (what we know to be) innocent people, they were removing a great evil from the earth.
This piece was first written on July 29, 2009, and first appeared on my website on July 3, 2025.
I know that others may disagree, but to me, labeling _people_ as good or evil is largely pointless. What’s the point of having a framework for labeling people instead of actions? How does that help me make better decisions in my own life?
For example, let’s imagine I have two friends, Alice and Barry.
Alice is what we might call a “good friend”. She’s reliable and supportive. She shows up on time when we have plans, she helps me out when I need it, she’s supportive when I’m feeling unhappy. Sounds great, right? Well, it turns out that unbeknownst to me, Alice is doing this solely for selfish reasons, because she’s focused on the reciprocal side of the relationship, the things I do for her.
Meanwhile, Barry is what we might call a “bad friend”. He’s not reliable. He often cancels plans. He offers to help and then flakes out. When I’m feeling down, he’s not a great listener because he can’t seem to focus on what I’m saying. Now, sadly, it turns out Barry has a number of psychological/neurological issues that lead to this behavior. He _wants_ to be reliable and supportive and helpful, but his issues means he forgets commitments, double books himself, and tends to have trouble focusing on what other people are saying.
Which of these two friendships should I invest in? Well, Barry is a “good person”, if we look at his intentions, and Alice is a “bad person”. But surely it would be madness for me to focus on deepening my relationship with Barry over Alice!
We can repeat this type of scenario with many variations. For example, maybe they’re politicians on the city council.
Alice is ultimately self-serving and deep down, only cares about being famous and getting re-elected. To do that, she spends a lot of time researching issues that her voters care about and carefully crafting legislation that is in her their best interests. Over time, her efforts help address severe problems that her voters care about, like reducing homelessness, reducing local housing costs, and improving local services like trash collection, police response, etc.
Barry, OTOH, is a guy with a great heart. He really cares deeply about other people. I truly believe him when he tells me he wants to help me and the other people of my city. Unfortunately, Barry isn’t super smart, he’s a bit unfocused, and he’s easily swayed. He’s constantly advancing legislation that _sounds good_ but turns out to have unforeseen bad consequences. He lacks the long-term focus and planning to evaluate his past actions, so he never works on reversing his bad decisions. He’s easily swayed, so special interest groups have an easy time of talking him into bad legislation that advances the interests of the few over the many.
Which one should I vote for? Surely, it would be madness to vote for Barry, right?
So what is the point of labeling someone a “good person” or “bad person”?
Instead, when I evaluate people (for relationships, politics, financial support, etc.), I should probably focus on their past actions, as well as information that helps me predict their future actions. It’s this last bit, “predicting future actions”, where intentions do come into play. But this is just one factor among many that I should evaluate, and it’s probably not the most important one.
Similarly, when I consider things like legal consequences for actions, intentions are not terribly relevant. The good-hearted schizophrenic mass murderer needs to be put in a situation where they cannot harm others. So does the evil-hearted serial killer. It doesn’t really matter why they did what they did. As long as we think they might do it again, they are a danger and need to be dealt with. Maybe the schizophrenic goes to a high-security asylum and the serial killer goes to a high-security prison. And maybe one day the schizophrenic can go free because they’re no longer a danger, while the serial killer will never change. But these are small differences, overall.
To summarize, actions speak louder than words, and the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
Argh, the blog ate my paragraph breaks! That is not supposed to be a wall of text!