As others have answered in this very thoughtful thread, it's a most deep and puzzling question. As is the distinctions between ideas, intentions, and actions -

As others have answered in this very thoughtful thread, it's a most deep and puzzling question. As is the distinctions between ideas, intentions, and actions - the basis of much jurisprudence - which is examined here too. However there is the truly horrifying idea in Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, which once you comprehend it is so dark that even those who call themselves 'nihilists' recoil from it. And yet maybe we should celebrate it because it's Kierkegaard through and through - that we have 'no essential self'. If we are possessed by a soul it is as an observer, a witness to a perfect drama involving other mind-bodies, each equally devoid of a central "self". That can be a relief. But as was discussed here recently with regard to mindfulness and Buddhism, that "idea" can itself be dangerous, for some it's a license to be a dick. Perhaps nature/evolution is clever in giving us all a little anxious piece, a "self" that can be hurt, since that allows social structures.