The ethics of intent define the morality of an action based on why it’s committed, rather than its outcome. I know because I just Googled “what’re the ethics of intent?”
Someone else on Google says, “The morality of an action lies in the intent behind it, not in its outcome. We can only judge a person's character by how hard they try to do the right thing, not by whether or not they fail due to circumstances beyond their control.”
It’s not the outcome of a car crash—let’s get dark and say death—but whether the driver tried to kill the other driver on purpose or even if they killed the other driver after 10 shots vs. if they had an unknown medical condition that caused them to lose consciousness and veer into the wrong lane. This, then, should determine the outcome of the outcome like ricocheting pool balls.
The specifics might change, the proposed outcomes might change (e.g. “do you give the drunk rehab or put them in jail?”) but I can’t think of any social institutions that don’t rely on that moral code to some degree.
Or, let’s shift a little and look at the US criminal-legal system (I should know, I went to law school. Haha no I asked a lawyer friend). Intent is parsed to determine culpability in roughly three ways:
a) Intent: A person engages in a course of conduct with the specific aim of achieving a particular outcome b) Knowing: Awareness that a course of conduct will result in a likely outcome. In this case, they are still culpable, but the negative outcome is a step below intent c) Recklessness: Disregard for the consequences of possible conduct (drunk driving).
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