I would ask how often making that distinction actually matters. I grew up in a rather conservative household, so went into the world with a pre-disposition to b

I would ask how often making that distinction actually matters. I grew up in a rather conservative household, so went into the world with a pre-disposition to be against welfare programs and the like, stemming from an attribution error that most people on said programs would if not at first, then later on behave in ways intentionally designed to retain the benefits. In this way I was ascribing motivational intent to what could almost always be a circumstantial behavior. As a result felt that such programs or ignoring that potential when building such programs would be irresponsible. Yet over the years I have had encounters with many people on such programs in many different places and walks of life. And some of those people have indeed confirmed that belief that people would act in that way. But many more have not, and even those that have in many circumstances have done so in response to the nature of the benefit programs that encourage such behavior by implementing policies that ironically are intended to discourage that behavior. By overweighting the necessity to distinguish the “good” intentions from the “bad” intentions, we’ve designed programs that not only encourage more bad behavior, but equally do harm to those that need the help of those programs. If instead such programs were designed to assume good intent / circumstantial behavior rather than nefarious intent, yes we might waste some money and effort on people we otherwise shouldn’t. But is that irresponsible or just the cost of doing maximal good with the resources we have?