I would have to agree on Scanlon's points that action is what shapes the permissibility of a moral act, but I would also have to disagree on his points of whether or not intent plays a role in the shaping of permissibility. Intent must play a role in shaping permissibility simply because it exists.
Information regarding intent is usually only available some time after the event in question occurred or after some thought/research has brought it up, so it can definitely play a role in determining permissibility because performing an unwanted, unexpected action through small chances can make even the best of people look morally abhorrent. Actions don't provide all of the information needed to be able to correctly and fully assess whether or not an event in time was morally right or wrong. Since moral arguments are analyzed under socially acceptable grounds, they correlate strongly with reward and punishment because what's usually trying to be reinforced over time are actions we deem helpful or beneficial. When actions seep through the system and are justified as morally wrong on the surface, we often need to also look at intention to show that it may actually be morally right.
Although, one problem that highlighting intention may present is the fact that people may only be able to keep in their memory the action itself, distinguishing it from the intention but not from the moral verdict. Does this mean that we shouldn't bring up the knowledge of intention? Not only should we because everyone has the right to know what happens in the mind of the person in question, but we cannot hide this information since it will most likely be something that can be seen or brought up. However, actions do ultimately hold the key to determining moral events as being right or wrong because every observed/noticeable action will have a ripple effect throughout a subculture/social environment. People will believe one way or another that a moral act is right or wrong, depending on what they've been able to learn was that way over their lifespan.
So, I do not entirely agree with Scanlon in that intention plays no role in determining permissibility of an action, but I would agree that actions play a large role in determining it. Permissibility is precisely defined by the social environment in which the moral act of justice/injustice occurs and since intention cannot hide from the minds of a culture, it has to play a role in determining permissibility. Actions just take center stage in all cases since they are what are remembered more than intention and are what can be rewarded/punished to reinforce further actions relating to the act.
I think you are definitely right in saying that "information regarding intent is usually only available some time after the event in question occurred or after some thought/research has brought it up." Often the moral permissibility of an action or event is only questioned many years after the event. Also, it is usually only brought up once it has been decided that a certain event is not permissible. If the question of something being morally permissible does come up while the action is still occurring or the event is still taking place then I would argue that more likely than not it is after the event or action has been going on for a long time. For example, the intent of slavery was not in question for a long time. That is because the action itself was seen as morally permissible so there was no need to look at the intent. Once the action was begining to shift towards being impermissible, that is when intent was brought into question. However, the intent doesn't hold any weight in this matter. If slavers genuinely believed that African-Americans weren't at the same intellectual ability of whites and that they were doing them a favor, that still does not make it morally permissible. Even though the slavers could argue that their intention was good and they were just dealing with the "white man's burden," their action was still morally impermissible. So while I agree that often intent is not taken into factor until much after the event, I disagree when you say that it plays a role once it is brought into question.
ReplyDeleteI think throughout your blog post, you use the word permissibility quite differently from the way Scanlon uses it. Scanlon’s definition of permissibility involves an action’s fulfillment of some sort of metaphysical criteria, such as the principle to not harm. You, on the other hand, seem to use permissibility as what society chooses not to punish and impermissibility as what society chooses to punish for the sake of social order. This is a fundamental difference, and it significantly changes the reason for which intent is relevant to permissibility for the two of you.
ReplyDeleteScanlon argues that intent does not matter because it does not affect the permissibility of an action nor does it affect the principles that the action does or does not violate. However, you say that it does matter for permissibility because, to you, permissibility is what society uses to regulate its members’ actions –to regulate its members’ actions, intent must be taken into consideration. These are two different conversations, and I think that it is important that you keep in mind the distinction that separates the two by keeping track of what Scanlon means by permissibility and what you mean by permissibility.
(In fact, your definition of permissibility as a regulatory tool of society is more similar to what Scanlon calls a critical use of the principles defining permissibility. Scanlon does say that these critical judgments, which we use to assess other people and perhaps reinforce certain actions in others in the way you mention, do involve a consideration of intent. So you and Scanlon may not be disagreeing as much as you think as long as what you mean by permissibility is kept clear.)