(May 9, 2016 at 9:42 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I think it's pretty obvious that intent matters, since morality (at least to me) means acting in accordance with feelings and ideas about a more perfect social world.
For example, let's say I donate money to a woman's shelter because I'm hoping to impress a woman into having sex with me. While donating to help people in need is generally moral, it's moral because I'm acting on a principle of goodwiill. If I'm doing it to take advantage of someone's psychological state (feeling men are cruel and uncaring and being grateful when a man seems to show compassion) is clearly immoral.
But giving to the shelter, in and of itself, is a separate act from taking advantage of a woman because of it. If someone has the motivation to give money to a women's shelter and dies before taking advantage of anyone, you would have to unfairly assign the immorality of his intentions to judge whether they were morally good or bad.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
