Question Hi, a friend of mine posited an interesting thought experiment (which may or may not be original) and it goes like this. A man's walking down the road when he gets shot at. The shooter misses but the sound of the shot startles the man so much that he jumps out of the way of an oncoming bus that would have most certainly killed him. The shooter runs away because he's afraid of drawing attention to himself. What is the moral judgement on this shooter who inadvertently saved a life while intending on taking it? What value is attached to morally 'good' actions motivated by 'bad' intentions? If the emphasis is not on an individual's inherent motivations, then I have another question which perhaps requires separate scrutiny to the first one but is related nonetheless: could colonialism ever be regarded as a moral act, given that it created several moral 'goods' (think of the abolition of widow immolation in India known as sati, or several brutal initiation ceremonies in tribal Africa) even though the underlying intentions were often unquestionably 'bad'?

Accepted:

May 19, 2008