“Useful” as in: a framework that gets the result you want. And yet the framework they’re describing has a serious and obvious flaw, and so it won’t reliably get

“Useful” as in: a framework that gets the result you want. And yet the framework they’re describing has a serious and obvious flaw, and so it won’t reliably get the result they want. If we believe in intention, then how can we ever understand all the examples of people that had good intentions but still ended up acting immorally? We can argue they’re lying or that their intentions weren’t pure enough for our taste, but there absolutely will be cases that don’t fall into those two categories. Also, even with all our philosophy, psychology, and experience, we have no idea what their internal world was like. We might as well just be reading tea leaves. The whole function of treating ethics this way is to provide reassurance to everyone that they don’t need to worry about screwing everything up… but it’s just reassurance. You need reassurance because your anxiety is valid. There’s no philosophical framework or purity of heart that can save you from making a bad decision that does more bad than good. You just have to do the best you can.