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Regarding morality, why should intent matter more than impact?

I've thought about this but I'd like to hear from this community just in case any of you have some ideas about this that I haven't come across.
The question occurred to me while thinking about the term "microaggression." The definition of a microaggression allows for slights that are unintentional to be counted as one. Why is it necessarily a bad thing to prioritize impact over intent? Why should intent matter at all?

BFrydell 5 Mar 21
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1

Simple answer . Unintended consequences .

0

Intent makes very little difference to the damage done, a person shot in the leg by mistake is just as sore as a man shot in the leg on purpose, but intent makes all the difference in the world when assessing moral or legal culpability, if the shooter intended to shoot you in the leg, or in the chest, that's deadly assault or attempted murder, whereas the most the shooter by mistake is guilty of is negligence, and he could be completely innocent.

Not all cases are as clear cut as the above, but they all come down to the same type of judgement when assessed clearly and fairly. And that's why it is necessarily a bad thing to prioritize impact over intent. But there is another issue that distorts judgements about so-called "microaggressions": the travesty of equating verbal aggression with physical aggression.

Well the word "aggression" can technically include nonphysical actions. Psychologists say that women manifest their aggression in the form of gossip and reputation destruction. None of that is physical.
However, that word does NOT include unintentional actions. If someone physically harms you on accident, it is technically incorrect to say that that person committed an act of aggression.

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I feel that putting more value on intent is avoidance of responsibility for the impact. Understanding the impact and taking responsibility ensures that you will adjust your future actions accordingly. If intention was good but outcome was bad then your philosophy needs adjustment. If you value the intention more, then you cannot learn and are bound to repeat the same mistake. In the case of micro-aggressions you also have to weigh the other persons role in the impact because oversensitivity on someone else's part may not be good reason to change your philosophy. I would also like to say that if people are trying to perceive micro-aggressions in your speech then it is not a healthy or productive conversation and should probably be avoided.

1

Intent cannot be justified. Impact can be justified. Intent has no evidence while impact does. It is difficult or impossible to actually detect and be aware of one's own intents. Most times, the intent to do something over-rides the self-awareness that an individual possesses. Granted, those that do not have malicious (socially) intent to start with may gather enough knowledge and possess enough creative imagination to become self-aware that they can detect malicious intents if it bubbles up in the future. Not everyone are capable of this self-awareness and therefore lack the ability to critically examine their intentions. Some continue to justify their intentions because that is tied in with their survival. Intentions also arise from firmly held beliefs which cannot be examined through self-awareness.

The key here is to become as much self-aware as possible. If this cannot be done, there is no use in blaming one's intentions to be the cause of any impact because intentions are as biological as thoughts and desires. The only way to control and channelize these phenomena is by introspection and meditation. Even with self-awareness, there is a lot of possibility for impact without intent. I don't think intent can ever be justified at all. No one intends to be a certain way, they just are!

So it seems like your'e considering the human being as a whole; you aren't differentiating between impact and intent because intent is just another form of impact (caused by biology and evolution). In other words, you're implying that we actually have no voluntary intentions. Is that correct?
If it is, it basically sounds like you're arguing that there is no such thing as free will. That's perfectly fine but I'd argue that that argument isn't relevant to the current topic. What I mean to say is that, even if there is no such thing as free will, there is still such a thing as intent; it's just entirely caused/determined by causal events in nature. whether or not we have free will, we shouldn't put any more or less conviction into our behavior. If we decide that there is no such thing as free will, and that theory turns out to be correct, it's not like we can just decide to stop thinking and stop trying and our bodies will just continue to move on their own without us actively trying to make them move. In other words, the causality in nature, whose existence disproves the existence of free will, determines our intentions. It isn't that intentions don'e exist; rather, it's that our intentions aren't under our control. Sam Harris once said something like "we do make choices but we have no choice as to which choices we make."
Of course, we can't know someone's intentions for sure. However, for many reasons, we can get a pretty good idea if something is an accident. If we bump into each other on the sidewalk, you can't know that I didn't walk into you purposefully but you can probably accurately infer that if I say something like "whoops, sorry." Similarly, if I unintentionally offend someone but apologize afterword, and if the apology would seem sincere to the average person, I believe that we should be able to forget it.

@BFrydell Taking offense and apologizing - these are binding part of social contract that we establish. This social contract varies across the world. In some cultures, people don't take offense for bumping into each other maybe and in some cultures apologizing for bumping into each other might not be a norm. What I am trying to say is that, we cannot come up with an absolute law based on intentions because intentions are not in one's control (as you said it yourself).

As for putting more or less conviction into our behaviour, I think the desire to be convicted about one's behaviour is also an intent in itself over which one has no control. It's paradoxical in some sense. The thought to stop oneself from doing something is often cited as an example of disproving free will. However, the thought that arose within oneself to not do something is also part of the uncontrolled cause/effect mechanism that is playing out. If free will doesn't exist, it includes all forms of intent - be it an intent to do something or an intent to not do something.

The only thing we can do in order to minimize the impact of bad behaviour is continue to set examples of good behaviour and educate our children about good behaviour and HOPE to see a reflection of that good behaviour in the society. However, most of our education in schools at the moment doesn't emphasize on behaving well or thinking well but emphasizes more on math and science. So what if someone behaves badly? - intentionally or not doesn't matter. What matters is there is a bad behaviour or impact. How do we make sure a similar impact doesn't occur in the future? Only by emphasizing the value of good behaviour. I think it all boils down to good wholesome education and care from the very young age.

0

Both the Las Vegas shooter and the recent monsters from New Zealand had clean records and were lawfully able to own firearms. Their prior impact on society was, at worst, neutral and clean. Their intent, however, was base and evil. This intent bubbled forward into the murder of innocent people. because of their character and evil intent, it should be anticipated that given the opportunity, they would attempt further murder.

In 1981, 114 people were killed and 216 people were injured due to a structural failure. The people responsible were found to be grossly negligent by their engineering boards but were acquitted of criminal charges. It is presumed that their intent was good and given the opportunity, they would attempt to do better.

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Intent is an inner feeling or desire

In a courtroom there is no room for feelings or desires

Only evidence.

And since whatever someone truly feels or desires is a locked up, inner thing

Then unless we can develop a feelings & desire detector (similar to a lie detector)
Then by necessity whatever feelings or desires someone had belongs in court after the verdict
as a influence on the sentencing

Well I wasn't really talking about the court of law. I was more curious about the court of social relations.
If I were ask someone from India teach me a phrase in his/her "native language," that could technically count as a microaggression. I could not be taken court for that but there might still be a conflict (depending on his/her temperament). resolve that possible conflict, should we more attention my inquisitive and innocent intentions or should we disregard my intentions and more attention the impact (which, in this case, would be the offense that he/she has felt)?

0

Intention(s) are surely not the most important detail to take into consideration...

What details, do you think, are more important than intent?

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