ABSTRACT
An ethic of intentions relates the rightness and wrongness of an action to the intention or motive with which the action was performed. This chapter highlights that people cannot understand moral responsibility until they understand its paradigms, and what it is to treat a man as a fully moral agent who can deserve praise or blame. Desert depends on evil intent or negligence is often taken in ethics as a truism; even as a tautology, as part of the meaning of 'moral' blame. The chapter presents three cases where it has refused to accept an ethic of intentions amount to qualifications rather than a rejection of it. The extreme tough-minded utilitarian, who resorts to efficacy as a sure touchstone to get rid of all scruples that are not profitable to society, joins hands with the extremest form of an ethic of intentions.
