So here is a rhetorical situation.

I decided that I wanted to shoot up a school full of kids, so I grabbed an automatic assault rifle, and drove up to school. On my way there, I came across a base full of terrorist that are aliens here to kill every non aliens, and for the purpose of this question; it is in fact a terrorist base, no question about it. I then decided to use up all my ammo to kill the entire terrorist population. Am I a hero? Are intentions... more important than actions?

Note: The government passed a law to be able to kill terrorist. The terrorist are aliens that came to earth to terrorize people. They speak alien. They don't look anything human, they walk on 4 Adolf Hitler. They kinda look like ted bundy, if he was an alien, they have no feelings or thoughts because they are controlled by a master alien and they fuck your mother every night.
lol.. I'm only doing this because people are avoiding the real question to attack the rhetorical situation.

2 years ago*

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What even is that question? It seems like you were so focused on setting up a situation as edgy as humanly possible that you forgot that the people reading this need to actually get what you're asking.
First of all there's barely any gray zone in that question, it's just black on black, violence for self satisfaction that actively harms others with reckless disregard for human life, or violence for self satisfaction directed at a group that you have deemed as not deserving of empathy and unambiguously evil in an attempt to morally justify killing them. So the two alternatives you present are complete amorality or imposing your moral values upon an alien race, like when humans see supposed evil in the actions of animals that have a completely different interpretation of the world around them. Ultimately it would be acceptable to kill them if they're an imminent risk to human survival or just to your individual survival but that wouldn't make it good or correct, nor it needs to be, survival is mostly morally neutral. On the other hand killing a bunch of children is unambiguously wrong because you are aware of the rules of our society and are a part of it for the simple fact of living in it and being human.
But at the end of the day the question fails to address the supposed core of the conundrum, which I guess should be "is doing a good thing for bad reasons morally wrong?" or "is doing bad things for good reasons morally right?". May I suggest a complete reformulation of the hypothetical situation you presented to us so it can actually deliver the intended question.

2 years ago
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OP edited the initial post. There wasn't any mention of "aliens" before. It was all about killing humans.

2 years ago
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2 years ago*
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"Actions speak louder than words"
"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

The world judges you by what you do, not by what you think (unless we suddenly become telepaths).
Keep the school thing between you and you're shrink (and go see one ASAP to deal with your issues).

And I'm sure everybody had the occasional dark thought ... smacking the Sh*te out of people who don't know how to drive, setting off a large explosive device in a certain resort in Florida habitually habited by an umpa lumpa, etc. That's normal.

1) Having access to a large cache of firearms
2) Having severe undiagnosed mental issues
3) Wanting to shoot up a school full of innocent children

That makes you American ... so god help you.

Because it doesn't look like you'll ever get a government that wants to help those with a mental illness or deal with access to firearms for people who have issues. You can't even convince people who have polio, chickenpox, diphtheria, influenza, measles, etc. shots as kids to get a covid shot because of ignorance and lies.

And yes we have ignorant people as well, we just keep most of them in one area and call them "Albertans" ;-)

2 years ago
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You wouldn't be able to tell really as you wouldn't be able to think clearly.

In any case vigilantism is just a rage fuelled seeking of violence. People might find all kinds of justifications for whatever they do, but passing judgment based on your feelings and beliefs is erroneous.

2 years ago
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İ believe it's changes to the situations(on my daily life to)(how is my mood ,does his action is ended with a good or bad end,is there a deal /talk we made related to/about this....) and why did you wanted to destroy the school and did you destroyed the aliens because of public or for yourself

2 years ago*
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To me, the answer to this question and really any morally based question is "Whatever you personally think". Everyone is or can be their own hero, think what they're doing is correct and 'good' and everyone has a different view on morality, no matter how small that difference is. The law part doesn't matter unless it changes your opinion. So really, this feels like a question searching out different moral viewpoints from random SG members. To be honest, I'm also not sure if there is any way to address if intentions are more important then actions, since that's nearly the same as asking if there can be an alternate universe where every world is flat-a question based purely on opinion. (P.S I don't really see anyone doing anything as a 'hero', so I guess not)

2 years ago
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Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.......

View attached image.
2 years ago
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Huh? Aren't you an alien too? Take a good look in the mirror. 👽👾
So the question is, will humanity accept us?

There will probably be nothing left but self-satisfaction.┐(´Θ`)┌
The assailant who tried to kill me in the accident is still at large.
When the situation becomes inconvenient, humans prioritize self-gratification.
Perhaps they are aliens that look like humans.

2 years ago
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2 years ago
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In a legal situation intentions matter to prove the level of accountability to hold someone to and the appropriate punishment to fit their actions. Accidentally killing someone vs carelessly (different than accidental in that you had a responsibility and did not take care to avoid the situation) vs a snap emotional response (crime of passion) vs planned and premeditated actions. Intentions matter and require proof to show them, generally one's actions. If anyone could prove why you were really there your good actions would no longer be as important. Intentions, if provable, can carry more weight than action itself alone. Alternatively, if someone had discovered your plan...had you written any of your plan down or spoken of it (even jokingly or rhetorically), had a map of the school, all of the ammo and weapons...someone may be able to infer your intentions combining all the circumstantial evidence before you even take any more actions beyond preparation and still hold you accountable for it those actions of planning. Maybe scale your question down and clean it up. Here I'll show you an example.... You're standing in a control booth, you can't leave and there's only one lever in front of you. The lever switches the tracks on a train line that splits...one right one left. On the right track there is a person tied down. On the left track there are 5 people tied down. A train is approaching at high speed. Which track do you switch it to? If you don't switch it the train will randomly go right or left. What do you do? Of course there is a variable in this question that can be changed and change the nature of your answer and the intentions behind your action. So in one instance everyone is a stranger... in another the one person is your greatest love and the 5 people are all strangers...so on and so forth

2 years ago*
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You are really bad at asking questions and creating rhetorical situations.
Aliens, terrorists, Hitler-legged, Ted Bundy?
And the mind readers will determine your guilt? Or will you share your intentions?
This reminds me of Gennaro D'Acampo's grandmother.

2 years ago
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Jaxed gave a good answer, still, I think I'll add my own.

First of all, the actions here are different. Sure, the two options involve killing, but they involve killing different things. You could also have wasted your ammo on killing mosquitos, and that would be different. So your example doesn't really have anything to do with intention vs. action. It has to do with different actions, and how they are judged.

Beyond this, yes, the intention matters. Even though you killed the aliens and may be considered a hero, you most likely still desire to kill schoolkids, which was your original intention. So although you were diverted from your intention by encountering aliens, that intention still matters and if people knew about it they'd do well to stop you even though you saved the world.

2 years ago
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I'm going to ignore your actual question and focus on what I think the key point is: intention of performing an action.

Let me posit another thought experiment. The aliens you mention? Strange fellows, but indubitably friendly. They offer you (yes, you personally) a deal. They cure all diseases of all humans (and maybe animals), but first, you need to drink a potion that will make you feel miserable for a week. No long term effects at all, guaranteed. Would you do it?

I'll assume you said yes. Most people would. Strange deal, sure, but too good to refuse.

So, let's alter the deal. They eradicate the diseases first, but afterwards you have to drink the potion. Would you still do it?

Nothing much changed. I'll assume you still said yes. Maybe you will try to get out of drinking the potion, maybe you'll keep your word. Surely, if they can eradicate all diseases, they might bring them back as well. Let's say you took the deal and maybe even drank the potion.

Last scenario. They are not interested in you drinking the potion. They are interested in this human concept of "intent." They only want you to intend to drink the potion, at the time you agree to the deal. They don't want you actually to drink the potion. Why would they want that? And they inform you of this in advance: they want you, and all denizens of the earth, to be happy.

Still sounds like a good deal; let's say you agree to it. They measure you with their alien intent device and /snap/ like that, all diseases are eradicated. Maybe you want to follow through on your commitment and ask for the potion. But the aliens are adamant: "we don't want you to drink the potion, human. We were only interested in your intent at the time you made the deal. You stand to gain nothing."

Now, if you think that you would keep pushing for the potion, even though no one would be served, maybe the thought experiment needs to be tailored a bit. Maybe the potion is for a loved one, and not for you. Or it isn't a potion, but a test that you just might fail (bringing back all diseases), like a coin flip, or you need to roll a natural 20. The punishment needs to be light enough to be worth taking the deal, but heavy enough that you really want to avoid suffering the punishment. I'm sure you can come up with something that works for you. Remember: you never promised anything. No one wants you to suffer the punishment. Only your intentions, at the time of the deal, count. And the aliens won't renegade on the deal.

And to avoid more issues, let's say that this is the only "intention-based" deal they will ever offer, anyone.

Intent of performing an action (in contrast to the intended consequences of a performed action) is a strange concept when you apply some pressure to it. Can you really intend to do something that you won't?

2 years ago
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Can you really intend to do something that you won't?

Why not? I'm not sure how any of your scenario demonstrates this somehow isn't possible. Hypothetical aliens with instant measuring devices aside, this ignores the temporal component of thought and personalities. I can fully, unreservedly intend to do something at one point in time, and almost instantly renege on it the next moment, as other impulses gain power. In fact I'm sure most of us have experienced something quite like that at one point or another in our lives. Since there is always a frame of time, no matter how small, between intent and action, there's always room to change your mind -- this need not be a conscious decision. That doesn't mean that at one point in time, you didn't fully intend to do something that you ultimately just didn't end up doing.

Of course we could make the aliens even more advanced and say that they can not only measure intent at a point in time, but somehow extrapolate from your entire mental state to say your intent is "stable enough" to count (as in, free from conscious or unconscious disruptions that would flip your intent for the foreseeable future), which I think exposes the real issue: we're postulating aliens who know you better than you know yourself, since their "measured intent" somehow trumps your own "intent at any given point in time". If we allow that we've reduced the problem to what the aliens think our intent is, according to their measurements, and of course they are then allowed to claim (with no way for us to contradict it) that we "really" intended or "really" didn't intend to do something.

This sort of stuff leads to even more amusing thought experiments (replace the aliens with a hand-held measuring device that we ourselves can operate and it gets really interesting) but is far removed from what we normally can allow for when we speak of mental states. Ultimately, since our minds are not required to be consistent or coherent (and strong arguments can be made that they are almost certainly not fully consistent or coherent, on the high level you need to describe "intent") most questions of the form "can we really think/believe X but then somehow not think/believe X" should be answerable with "yes, to some extent", and this holds up even if we throw in objective measurement (to the extent such a thing is possible).

2 years ago
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Hm, not exactly the newest question in the book. I´ll try to give you a little excerpt of what has come up so far to the best of my memory and knowledge ..

  • Buddhism - Yes
  • Daoism - No
  • Hinduism - idk, probably Yes
  • Catholicism (+ Orthodoxies most likely aswell) - YES
  • Protestantism - NO
  • Islam - idk, probably No
  • Judaism - How can you have one without the other, stupid ?

Anyway I´d recommend reading some Watzlawick (he´s an Idiot but fun to read mostly) and Fromm´s "To Have or to Be ?" to strenghten your own thoughts & opinion on the matter.

2 years ago
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I'll vouch for Hinduism's answer being yes; the whole system hinges on karma and what kind of person you are, so if you do something like push someone down in the mud face-first, but Johnny Knoxville sees it and thinks it's funny and offers that person a million dollars to put it on Jackass, even though the end result was good, you still get bad karma for it.

2 years ago
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No. Actions have real consequences that can affect other people, intentions are just whatever random thought is floating through your head. That said, it's easier to forgive someone who does something bad on accident instead of on purpose, so long as they don't repeat it.

2 years ago
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"I decided that I wanted to shoot up a school full of kids"
Bruh...

2 years ago
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I didn't read the other comments here, so I'm sorry if this has already been said :
You are not a hero because you killed the terrorists in their base, on the sole basis of their intent to kill.
But if you didn't killed them... maybe, on their way to do their killing fest, they would have changed their minds like you when you saw their base ?
Who knows what an intention really is ?
(of course this is a rhetorical answer to a rhetorical situation...)

2 years ago
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What the fuck did I just read.

2 years ago
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You can love all the cats, but a person who gives water to one cat is more important than you.

2 years ago
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Are intentions... more important than actions?

Of course not.

2 years ago
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I think you should know about the point of view of every group.

  • You're a hero for the people.
  • You're a nemesis for the aliens.
  • You're a danger for the kids.

If in the future you harm the children then you will lose the respect of people and the aliens can take revenge on you reaping you until you conceive an alien child.

I advise to play less Postal games.

I forgot the ultimate question: "It is your right to take lives?"
I wonder if someone can say yes to this.

2 years ago*
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The situation has nothing to do with the question; you wanted to do one thing, and changed your mind to do another thing. That gives you one set of actions, but 2 sets of intentions, the first of which is just floating in the air, waiting for something to accompany it. It might also interest you to know that this particular scenario comes off as really edgy and immature and one of those things that people say to intentionally offend people and then say, "Gotcha! It's HYPOTHETICAL! Now, you are the idiot for being offended, because it's not real!" Don't know if this is your intention, but many are going to perceive this of your action; do with that as you will.

But I'll still answer the question and pose a new scenario with some of the same information that better fits the question. You did say that you wanted this to be educational, after all. The answer of whether intentions is more important than actions isn't a simple yes or no, because it's only a fragment of a full question. The outcome depends upon what it is that you're judging; are you judging how much good someone has done or are you weighing their character? Good people do bad things; bad people do good things; it happens, but those actions alone or even the intentions behind them don't necessarily make the person bad or good. It might also depend on the situation; do the means justify the end? This is, of course, ignoring the relativity of morals; do enough mental gymnastics and you can justify almost anything.

To answer this question in the simplistic context given here, though, a better scenario might be "You're a member of a counter-terrorism group, and you stumble upon a terrorist cell that has been bugged, and you know from what they've said that they plan to blow up a shopping mall, killing thousands of people. You kill all of them as they're on their way out the door to do the deed, saving thousands of lives, BUT, you didn't do it because you wanted to save lives; you killed them because you're a racist who hates them because of the color of their skin." Same action, but you're doing a good thing for a bad reason. Hopefully, this will be helpful for you to create more constructive conversations in the future, rather than being unnecessarily off-putting to most people.

2 years ago
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I think that they are two narratives. The one in your head, and the one for the world.

The world will never know what's in your head, unless you said it. In that case it's not in your head anymore, and becomes part of the world narrative.

So, when we die, our personal narrative die with us, only our actions persist. Actions are important. You can spend your whole life thinking about doing something (good or bad), if you never do it, nobody will ever know anything about it. So do the good, keep the bad only in the mind, and the world will be a better place.

2 years ago
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2 years ago*
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I was obviously talking about the actions of the private man. When you have world leaders, and politics, and mostly war, everything is blurred. Because Hitler wasn't just one man, he was the visible face.

We can discuss what is good or bad, but we can agree that sometimes its in our hand the decision of make others suffer, or alleviate that suffering. The sum of those individual decisions can make a difference. For better or for worse.

2 years ago
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2 years ago
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We can act on empathy, kindness and tolerance, and we can err. But if we keep acting in that direction, we can correct, mend, improve.

Something about actions, is that regarding of impact, we have plenty. We act a lot. So a consistent life acting with empathy, kindness, tolerance, a desire for understanding, for alleviate suffering, spreading this behaviour, being an example. I think that can be a life worth living.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY_zuNtf3_g

2 years ago
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1 year ago
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Closed 1 year ago by Deleted-5888920.