What matters more when we look at a person’s intentions versus the outcome of their actions?
Some argue that it’s purely a person’s intentions that we should look at in a given situation. Others believe that it’s more important to pay attention to the consequences of a person’s actions.
There are also people somewhere in the middle, as well as those who ask why it matters at all. I believe that this is an important question to consider. It is a debate that comes to the forefront with the rise of various issues.
We spend a lot of time dealing with the consequences of actions that we have not taken in both our personal lives and as a society.
Family members take courses of action that hurt and offend us. People on the internet debate about politics every day. When we take a close look at all these situations, we can’t help but consider whether we should focus on the intentions of others or the consequences of their actions.
While I’m not sure that I would say the two are equally important, I can confidently say that they both matter. When we ignore a person’s intentions, I think we choose to ignore humanity. It is a choice to ignore part of what makes us human, which is imperfection.
I think the primary assumption behind those who choose to focus on outcomes is that the person who hurt them did it intentionally, but this is not always the case. Sometimes, well-meaning people ignorantly take the wrong course of action.
Sometimes our friends say something offensive and don’t intend how it was received. Parents often do what they believe will be best for their kids, but end up hurting them.
Now, let’s take a look at the other side of things. A person’s ignorance or misjudgment that results in hurting someone does not make the consequences any less real or painful.
Even if a parent doesn’t mean to hurt their child, the reality is that the child still ends up hurt. It does not change the reality of the child’s pain simply to consider the intentions of the parent.
Although it is important to consider that people are imperfect, we need to remember that we ultimately still have to live in reality. In reality, people hurt each other often, whether or not they mean to.
It seems wrong to let somebody get away with hurting another person just because they had good intentions. This debate matters in our interpersonal relationships, but also when it comes to politics.
Many people assume that those who disagree with them have bad intentions. It is common to think that those who disagree are out to hurt other people, when that is not necessarily true.
There is no doubt that there are people who want to intentionally hurt others. We see this reflected all the time in the news. With each mass shooting, we see evidence that people sometimes harm each other intentionally.
However, I think the prevalence of intentional harm is grossly overestimated. Not everyone will agree, and maybe I am a bit too optimistic in this belief. I like to believe that the world is still filled with good people, despite the evil we see daily.
I have friends and family, all with different political views, and a lot of times it seems like they all assume the worst of others. Ironically, I’ve noticed that most of the time, their morals are strikingly similar. They simply disagree on the correct course of action.
If people who seem so different yet share similar morals, why do they so often demonize each other? Most of the time, it boils down to whether people view intentions or consequences as more important.
Many people have good intentions, and that matters. However, if we don’t take any course of action, we are doing our society a great injustice. Intentions cease to matter when no actions are taken at all.
When we carefully examine whether it is a person’s intentions or outcomes that matter, I think we will find that it is often both. The most important thing is that we take action with good intentions, rather than no action at all.
In the end, we can apologize for the consequences and devise new plans to help us do better. However, if we take no action at all for fear of choosing the wrong course, far more people suffer in the end.