18 thoughts on “Harming Intentionally, Helping Incidentally”

  1. Interesting scenario. The bottom line is, the President didn't care that the new program would harm the environment and gave it the green light. His intentions were aimed at the benefits to his company. He did know that there was an environmental downside and ignored it.
    What about driving dangerously fast to make it to the movie on time. So I hit a few pedestrians on the way? I don't care. I made the movie on time. Did I intend to kill all those people?
    What about cleaning out the garage and pouring all of those old paints and thinners in the neighbors well. Hey, the garage is clean. I don't care about my dead neighbor. Did I intend to kill my neighbor?
    All three scenarios have what is called collateral damage, done knowingly!
    Capitalism is a great concept. What it now has in common with politics is that it is running roughshod over the (stockholders) voters that it supposedly serves. The board is hand-picked by the executives. The executives are blessed by the board. The executives and the board make out very well. The employees and the stockholders are at their mercy. They do not make out very well, especially in large corporations.
    Capitalism will thrive again with new small and medium companies with visionaries at the controls. It will happen if we only let it and stop bailing out bloated, outmoded companies that produce a good quarter by laying people off.

  2. I said “no “both times. What do I win?

    I'm not sure if his primary goal matters, so long as he 1) Understood the concomitant effects of his actions 2) Had proper control over his decisions and 3) Did it anyway.

    If a person murders, either because he wants another person's money (money being the primary goal) or just for kicks (killing being the intrinsic goal…or perhaps more specifically, a shot of dopamine in his brain that, to him, could only come from killing), he's equally culpable. If he killed just for money, but wanted that money because he was starving, that would diminish his culpability, because starvation allows for less control over one's actions.

  3. Yep that really helped me to understand the need to regulate companies. They do their job by maximizing the profit without regard for externalizes. When their externalities are negative and impose on those around hem then it's time to bring out the regulators.

  4. I agree with muirgeo. But I don't consider low wages, lack of cozy independent stores, or increased consumption of unhealthy foods to be legitimate negative externalities. Carbon emissions, yes, although it's very difficult to quantify how much.

  7. And, then, what do you think will motivate the regulators? When their activities produce negative externalities, do you expect them to risk their own budgets and power?

  8. This experiment says more about the respondents' assumptions regarding corporate intent than about the inherent morality of the profit motive.

    Tangentially, last night I viewed the 1950 Kurosawa film Rashomon which subtly deconstructs the role worldview and preconceptions play in the perception and understanding of events and ultimately the very nature of truth. The title has been used to describe the clash between positivist and interpretivist assessments of contested events; The Rashomon Effect. (A relevant 2002 paper at the link.)

    That said, I do agree that what are commonly referred to as externalities (incidental byproducts of economic activity) at present are not effectively integrated into the price structure of goods. For a thought provoking examination of an alternative pricing structure that seeks to address harmful environmental externalities, I recommend Natural Capitalism [www.natcap.org]. The basic premise is that externalities are like friction on a system, i.e., waste — or lost profit potential. The goal is to utilize the profit motive to emulate natural systems' modus operendi — Waste = Food — within business and industry.

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  12. When the company president says, “I don't care about [the environment]” he doesn't seem to mean, “All nature offends me and I will do what I can to wipe it out,” but, “the environment is not a factor in this decision.” His intent is to maximize profit, and whatever happens to the environment will happen. It's clear to be that environmental effects were not the intent of the decision, so I don't think we can call those effects intentional in this case.

    Frankly, I don't think this is philosophy so much as semantic quibbling.

  13. When the company president says, “I don't care about [the environment]” he doesn't seem to mean, “All nature offends me and I will do what I can to wipe it out,” but, “the environment is not a factor in this decision.” His intent is to maximize profit, and whatever happens to the environment will happen. It's clear to be that environmental effects were not the intent of the decision, so I don't think we can call those effects intentional in this case.

    Frankly, I don't think this is philosophy so much as semantic quibbling.

  14. Neither action was intentional.

    The guy explicitly said “I don't care about that. All I care about is the profit.”

    He didn't care one way or the other, so neither action can be considered intentional.

    Why is this hard?

  15. The important question is not whether the environmental effects were intentional or unintentional. The important question is why so many people give different answers to the question of intent when nothing changes except outcomes. The definition of intentionality is boring; the *inconsistency* is interesting.

  16. Or, instead of wasting money with ineffective, and circumventable regulation, we could just get rid of laws preventing those responsible from being held accountable for their actions. If a corporate officer new that he personally could be charged with murder and face the consequences for his decisions, he might be a bit more inclined to “make the right choice.” Don't you think? The excess of law is what's causing the injustice, not the cure.

  17. Or, instead of wasting money with ineffective, and circumventable regulation, we could just get rid of laws preventing those responsible from being held accountable for their actions. If a corporate officer new that he personally could be charged with murder and face the consequences for his decisions, he might be a bit more inclined to “make the right choice.” Don't you think? The excess of law is what's causing the injustice, not the cure.

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