Consequences: Intentional vs Unintentional

In considering ethics, it is generally accepted that the intentional consequences of an action are of primary importance in determining whether a decision was ethical. It's generally held that a person who acts intentionally to cause harm is "worse" than an individual whose actions happened to cause harm, but that causing harm was not their intention.

I expect this is because ethics is based on reason: the factors that were taken into consideration in making a decision can be said to have influenced that decision, and any factor that was not taken into consideration had no impact on the decision, though they may have had an impact on the consequences.

However, failure to consider consequences, while not a deliberate choice to do harm, is not entirely ethically inconsequential. In arrears, we consider an individual to be responsible for any harm that results as a consequence of their actions, regardless of whether they were intentional. And as such, we consider an individual responsible for considering all possible consequences of an action in making the decision whether to undertake the action itself.

Said another way, failure to consider the consequences is a failure of ethics, though not as grievous as considering, but disregarding, the same consequences.

Even so, there remains a mitigating factor for unintentional consequences of an action: whether it was possible for the consequences to be foreseen. We accept the imperfection of human logic: we are not by nature omniscient, and therefore there are factors that are not known that will lead to outcomes that cannot be predicted. And in such instances, we further mitigate the culpability of the individual in making a decision.

For past action, there remains some argument over what "could have been known", coupled with suspicion about the honesty of a person who suggests that the reason they failed to predict an outcome was that they did not know. Much is left to conjecture.

However, for future action, the scope of knowledge is a matter of fact: the individual who makes a decision knows what they know before the decision is made, and any knowledge that comes to light after the decision is made (or when the action is initiated and cannot be prevented) can accurately be said to have been "not known" in making the decision - though one may argue in arrears that the decision-maker failed to exercise due diligence.

Another factor in gauging future consequences is probability. There are seldom instances where we can be perfectly certain before taking an action of what the consequences will actually be. We are limited to assessing the likelihood of consequences - and we make a decision based on the likelihood of outcomes.

In this way, decision-making is different from the act of assessing past decisions: once an action has occurred and consequences have resulted, we have better knowledge (not entirely perfect, but much more accurate) of the consequences of the action.

Form this, a future decision cannot be accurately assessed as being "good," but merely whether it is sound: if the individual who makes the decision has made a sufficient effort to discover the possible consequences, and made a decision based on a sufficiently reasonable assessment of the likelihood of outcomes, we can then say that the person has made an ethically sound decision, regardless of what the actual outcome happens to be when the action is undertaken.

The evaluation of sufficiency remains arguable. This should be considered.