So, this is a question on ethics...

[2ndRateMind]

...I've been thinking about, recently, off and on.

It's about intentions and outcomes. The current state of law in the Anglo-Saxon tradition is that intentions matter. A great deal. If you deliberately and purposefully murder your wife for the life insurance, you can expect a considerably harsher sentence than if you accidentally run her over while parking the car in the garage. Even though the consequences may be the same: one dead wife.

Yet, the three main approaches to ethics, deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics, all seem to stress outcome rather than intention. For deontologists, the idea is to obey the rules, because the rules will determine for you a better outcome (maybe in this world, or the next), than if you simply ignore them.

So far as utilitarianism goes, what is moral is simply the state of affairs that leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Actions and rules are right insofar as they promote that end, and wrong insofar as they don't.

And virtue ethics basically seems to suggest that the best way to achieve eudaimonia, or human flourishing, as an end, is to decide what the virtues are, and live out your life in accordance with developing them.

So, whatever, all the three academically respectable mainstream approaches to ethics appeal to outcome, rather than intention, as their justification for what makes an activity moral or immoral.

The problem with this is that we are not prescient; often enough, we just don't know what the outcomes of our activities may be. The world is complex and complicated, and we do not generally know enough about it to forecast with any accuracy the end result of our actions.

This train of thought leads me to suspect that all we can reasonably be held to account for, (come the end of days), is our intentions. They are more certainly under our own control than outcomes.

So, my question for the forum is, is contemporary ethics misguided in its emphasis on outcomes, or am I misguided in my emphasis on intentions?

Best wishes, 2RM.

[John Human]

If the drug addict lived in isolation and his habits did not impact anybody, then it cannot be argued what he is doing is ethically wrong.

I suspect that there is a counter-argument around here somewhere. Do we have moral duties to ourselves as well as others? The "natural law" perspective insists that we do. And then, for those who take a Biblical Christian perspective, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 says:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

Many people are addicted to things (phones, video games, alcohol, pornography, food, work, TV, sports, sex, etc). If it's argued that drugs are bad because of addiction, then all of these things can be considered bad too.

Once again, approaching from a hypothetical Christian perspective, it would seem that overuse of most of the things on your list could be correlated with the sin of gluttony. Is it possible that the word "addiction" gets overused?

[otseng]

Do we have moral duties to ourselves as well as others? The "natural law" perspective insists that we do.

I think there would be different spheres of ethics. Free will ethics would primarily involve legal/judicial ethics. There can be other spheres such as natural law ethics, social ethics, religious ethics, etc.

Free will ethics would only involve people directly affected and the consequences can result in punishment.

Many people are addicted to things (phones, video games, alcohol, pornography, food, work, TV, sports, sex, etc). If it's argued that drugs are bad because of addiction, then all of these things can be considered bad too.

Once again, approaching from a hypothetical Christian perspective, it would seem that overuse of most of the things on your list could be correlated with the sin of gluttony. Is it possible that the word "addiction" gets overused?

Possibly. But, most people know what is meant by addiction, whereas gluttony is primarily associated with food.

[otseng]

In most cases, people will not explicitly grant or deny permission for another to do something. With the hacking example, the target of the hack most likely has not explicitly denied permission to hack into his computer. So, the criteria is "if he could have made a decision, what would his decision be?" So, even though I have not expressly forbidden everyone in the world to hack into my computer, if someone were to ask me, I would say "No, you cannot hack into my computer." So, anyone who did hack into my computer would have committed a wrongful act.

This ties into the Matthew 7:12, "Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you: do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."

More than likely, someone else would make a similar decision as yourself in a particular situation. If you don't want someone to hack into your computer, don't hack into someone else's computer.