Is a man evil if he has evil thoughts, and good if he has good ones? — NOS4A2

I have intrusive thoughts that are just awful. But it doesn't define me. You have to acknowledge your shadow side, and then tell yourself it's just your ego talking. How you conduct yourself is what matters. There are psychopaths who are very moral people because they choose to live by an ethical code. Are they evil, because they have no empathy and (possibly) violent impulses?

How you conduct yourself is what matters. There are psychopaths who are very moral people because they choose to live by an ethical code. — RogueAI

:100:

Does ethics apply to thoughts? Is a man evil if he has evil thoughts, and good if he has good ones? — NOS4A2

No.

It seems to me that there is always a mental aspect, a behavioural aspect, and a consequential aspect to moral judgements.

“it’s the thought that counts” — NOS4A2

But "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Every platitude has a contradictory platitude, so that together they say nothing, and are thus never untrue.

If one unintentionally kills another, it is manslaughter not murder, so intentions count in law, but actions and consequences also count. If one intends to kill but fails, that is attempted murder.

The thought police are very tolerant of mere ideation that has no discernible behavioural expression, for the simple reason that they find it impossible to detect. But as soon as one shares those thoughts, it is liable to become conspiracy. Until then one's thoughts are subject only to one's own moral judgement.

Mens rea. The so-called intention can lead to a harsher punishment. You’re right. I guess I’m trying to find out why, ethically speaking, this needs to be the case.

even if a moral state of mind is biologically and measurably indistinct from an immoral or amoral state of mind. — NOS4A2

Of course, since the "biological" mind, i.e. the brain, is not involved in morality in any way.
(I know that most people would disagree about this. Otherwise, materialism/physicalism would not reign in our world!)

others will come to believe that you are good or evil according to what opinions you hold, regardless of any other behaviors you may or not engage in. — NOS4A2

Unfortunately, this is true.

I wonder if I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time, as for so long I’ve been judging people according to their conduct, how they treat others, and not by the opinions they hold and share. — NOS4A2

I believe you did it right. Ethics (morality) has to do mainly with action not thoughts, ideas, opinions, etc. although these two areas are usually in agreement. (Exceptions are hypocrisy, lying, dishonesty, etc. That is saying one thing and doing another. But the opposite can also happen, one can exhibit verbal violence but he can't "harm a fly".)

thinking and speaking are some of the least consequential in terms of physics. — NOS4A2

Agree.

So I raise the question to the experts. Does ethics apply to thoughts? Is a man evil if he has evil thoughts, and good if he has good ones? — NOS4A2

Experts in what? Philosophy, psychology, religion, neuroscience, ...? :smile:
Well, anyway, I'm not an expert in any of these but it happens I know well how the mind works, both in theory and in practice, having worked a lot and still working sometimes on this field. Actually there are no evil persons not even evil minds. There are only aberrated persons and minds. By "aberrated" I mean deviating from normal, i.e. what is expected, rational, healthy, good, etc. All of us are aberrated to some degree. However, aberration --with mental illness being its highest form-- is not a criterion of morality, since morality is exhibited with actions and not just thoughts, as I already mentioned. We say, e.g. "commit a crime". And crimes can be committed by anyone: a rational or irrational or mentally ill person and in "cold blood" or in a state of passion.
I must notice here that if a crime is committed by a highly aberrated (mentally ill) person, it cannot be considered as "immoral" (or even a crime), as far as that person is concerned, since such persons, have no sense of right or wrong. This is why such criminals do not end up in prisons but in asylums, per court orders.

Yes, morality is in theory, a mental affair, your actions do not matter. To be good, in a moral context, requires the desire to be good.

This view of morality that focuses on one's actions amounts to a grouping of different contexts with no thread in between to connect them.

Consider a few things, if one's goodness is judged by their actions, then why would we take one's ability to do good into consideration? Or shouldn't we? If a poor man, with no means to help others, is only compassionate in being kind to others, is he less good than a billionaire who has set up charities and helped thousands of people?

How do things such as self-control fit into this equation? If we take two people, with violent desires, and one acts on them and the other doesn't, why didn't the other act on them? Is it because he fears the consequence of his actions? Does his fear of the consequences and his ability to control his impulses make him a more righteous man?

If one gives advice to their friend because they want to see them succeed and offer what help they can, but their advice brings their friend misery, are they a terrible person? Should we characterise their act purely by their consequences?

Of course not.

Moral acts are defined by intention, and intention is defined by one's thoughts. In the example that @RogueAI gave, having violent thoughts doesn't make a person evil, but why aren't they acting on them does matter. If it's because of their calculation that it wouldn't be in their own best interests to act violently, does that really make them a good person? It's necessary for their reasoning to be rooted in the common good, and using moral logic. To call a person good for what they do, when they do what they do only out of self-interest and cold calculation, wouldn't that be absurd?

That being said, morality is a subjective affair, and in any given situation, any number of narratives can be written. We never really know what goes on in another's mind.

Expressions of thoughts of compassion and advocacy for fairness to all intuitively feel moral because 1) they are markers of being a moral person and 2) they can encourage others to act morally.

But perhaps the speaker is a psychopath who is using a low-cost strategy to convince other people to trust him so that he can exploit them. Then, the psychopath’s expression of compassion and advocacy of fairness as a means to exploit others would be immoral.

We can’t always know. The markers of being a moral person may be false, the goal of expressing moral sentiments may be evil.

Whether a man is evil cannot be determined with certainty based only on what he says.

Can we usefully categorize a thought as moral? If thoughts advocating moral behaviors are sincere, I think we can judge them as "moral thoughts". But that judgment of morality depends on intent.

The implication is that despite one’s actions (or lack thereof) one state of mind is morally superior to another, even if a moral state of mind is biologically and measurably indistinct from an immoral or amoral state of mind. — NOS4A2

This is a bit tangential, since it isn't immoral to have antisocial personality disorder, but...

Identifying individuals with antisocial personality disorder using resting-state FMRI

A line from an old song by Count Basie: "Brother, you can't go to jail for what you're thinking."

Behavior is observable; thoughts are not. I don't know what you (or anyone else) is thinking. I can't account for all of my own thoughts completely, given that some of them are not conscious. I can, of course, judge the moral quality of my deliberate thoughts, and I do, but I am a very biased judge. Some thoughts are dismissed out of hand as aberrations for which I am not really responsible.

First person accounts of what I, you, or anybody else is thinking are no more reliable than eye-witness accounts (given our capacities for self-deception).

One of the levers of monotheism is that (we presume) god is able to read our thoughts -- everything from the urges of the Id to the most elaborate plans for murder. The believer is taught to monitor his thoughts because god can read his mind, and will hold his thoughts as evidence for and against him. Internalizing the omniscient god is both somewhat effective and somewhat terrible. (I know this from first hand experience.)

I fall back on behavior: is this behavior good or is it bad or somewhere in-between? Was this an isolated, possibly impulsive, act, or was it part of a series of connected actions? An accountant might make an accidental error which costs the company money. That's one thing. An accountant might also systematically rob the company of several million dollars. That's not an accident.

Well, I would hope not. That would be outrageous if it were unethical or if somehow people could see our thoughts.

It's the one place in which we can see how far our ideas and intuitions go. Being a human being is not just about being good and moral and so wonderful, it's about dealing with the dark, disturbing and outright evil aspects of life.

Evil is just as much a reality as the good and requires exploration. So, no, I don't think it should follow that ethics applies to thoughts.

I think it depends on what we mean by "ethics". If we think of ethics as the art of living well, then it has a broader provenance than morality, and since thoughts may determine how we live and flourish, then, in that restricted sense, we could say that ethics does apply to thought.

The desire to be good isn't good enough, in my opinion. We can desire to be good until the cows come home, but until it motivates other actions and behaviors, those which can affect anyone else but oneself, a species of desire is all it will remain.

For my own part I'm opposed to utilitarian morality, that one's abilities, and the consequences or effectiveness of her actions can make her behavior moral. Moral logic and quests for the common good can lead one to do immoral things. As intimated I believe morality reveals itself in the act alone, whether it is impelled by thought or instinct or self-concern.

Moral logic and quests for the common good can lead one to do immoral things. As intimated I believe morality reveals itself in the act alone, whether it is impelled by thought or instinct or self-concern. — NOS4A2

That was Luther's argument against Erasmus. There are not a gang of referees to call each play so a different approach is needed.

I believe morality reveals itself in the act alone, whether it is impelled by thought or instinct or self-concern. — NOS4A2

I think you are wrong. Take the act of firing a gun. Right or wrong?

Obviously you need some circumstances, ok: the act of pointing a gun at a person and firing. Right or wrong?

I'd say you need more. I'd like to know the reason for pointing a gun at someone and firing. But this is a matter of the mind;

reason (a) a reasonable belief that the person was about to slaughter some kids with a machete.
reason (b) a reasonable belief that the person's tie colour clashed with their socks.

Both, or either of the beliefs could be true, but I think we can pick out which one justifies (attempted) homicide with some confidence. Of course if no machete was found at the scene, and/or no children, and/or tie and socks were a matching shade of grey, then the claimed beliefs would not seem reasonable. Call CSI.

Edit: I forgot to tell you the consequences; they seem to have a lesser importance, perhaps the general generic consequence of firing a gun at someone being liable to cause harm is sufficient in most cases, though there was that thing with someone getting shot on a film set a while back.

There is a difference between saving some kids and believing you’re saving some kids. He either shot someone and saved the lives of children or he shot an innocent man. One is moral the other immoral. What more do we need to add to it?

But again, as far as acts go, reasoning is the least consequential. It’s not as consequential as pulling a trigger, for instance. In fact it’s so inconsequential that we could never measure it, observe it, and all we can do is sift through its chatter, most of which comes after the event in question. Should this scant activity be applied to our judgement? Law says it should be. Again, I’m not so sure.

Well said, as usual.

To me @Judaka's and @unenlightened's posts complete my response to the "Does ethics apply to thoughts " question.

reason (b) a reasonable belief that the person's tie colour clashed with their socks. — unenlightened

As director John Waters showed, conclusively, in his epic film "Serial Mom", the immorality for wearing white high heels after September 1, or wearing clashing tie and socks, is a capital crime.

Mens rea. The so-called intention can lead to a harsher punishment. You’re right. I guess I’m trying to find out why, ethically speaking, this needs to be the case. — NOS4A2

Some ethical systems take thoughts into account and others do not, but most do—including, as you have noted, law. One type of thought that is almost always taken into account is the intention. The intention is important because it is the first principle of individual human actions. Every properly human act involves an intention, and the intention is the primary defining characteristic of an act.

For example, we might describe a behavior as, “Using a knife to cut into a man’s flesh.” But this behavioral description is insufficient for moral specification. Is he a surgeon, intending to save the man’s life; or is he a murderer, attempting to end it? The first is good, the second bad.

But again, as far as acts go, reasoning is the least consequential. It’s not as consequential as pulling a trigger, for instance. In fact it’s so inconsequential that we could never measure it, observe it, and all we can do is sift through its chatter, most of which comes after the event in question. Should this scant activity be applied to our judgement? Law says it should be. Again, I’m not so sure. — NOS4A2

Why think it is inconsequential? In one way it is more consequential than anything else. No trigger is ever pulled without a thought, without an intention. No human act ever occurs without a thought. Thoughts are a sine qua non for human action, and so if action is consequential then thoughts too must be consequential.

I think you may be entertaining the syllogism: <Because thoughts are less empirically measurable, therefore they are less consequential>. But does consequence really correlate to empirical measurement in this way?

I read elsewhere that someone was compassionate by virtue of what he wrote online, as if showing concern for others was something one could do entirely alone, tapping on some device or other. It evoked in me that tired platitude “it’s the thought that counts”. I’m not so sure. — NOS4A2

Thoughts are good or bad, but taken in isolation they are only good or bad in a minor way. “Virtue signaling” involves an overemphasis on mere appearances, and this is what makes it unappealing. If someone believes that thinking about saving a drowning man is as virtuous as saving him, then they are sorely mistaken. Nevertheless, it is still good to desire to save drowning men, and the act of saving a drowning man will always involve that thought/desire.

It is also worth noting that the absence of a thought can deprive mere behaviors of their moral nature. For example, if you are only doing something because there is a gun to your head, or because you don’t happen to possess Plato’s Ring of Gyges, then a good action loses its moral worth.

In short, moral actions require both: good actions propelled by good thoughts and intentions. On my view those who try to isolate thoughts and those who try to isolate actions are both mistaken.

Thoughts matter to some extent, but it is fuzzy to me. Some people have occasional violent thoughts about others, but this is clearly not as bad as actually doing violence. Maybe fantasies aren't bad in themselves, since they have a conscious unreality — the thinker is on some level aware that they are merely fantasizing. I think that at least mitigates most of the wrongness. Still, the nature of these thoughts can reveal something about one’s character, and different thoughts may carry different implications. Having vivid thoughts about doing something wrong could be said to be at least instrumentally wrong since it might dispose one to do the wrong thing, but would it be bad for its own sake? Take the following thought experiment:

The VR Prank. It's the year 2082 and Virtual Reality has developed drastically. As a joke, Adam plugs his friend Burt into a custom scenario without informing him. There is no visible change, but everything is now only a simulation in Burt’s unaware mind as the scenario plays out and Adam observes the events through the technology. Adam wanted to see how Burt would react if a life-threatening scenario occurred, maybe to rattle him a little bit. Thus, the representation of Adam collapses unconscious before Burt’s eye, laying helpless on the floor. Yet, instead of calling for help, Burt looks over his shoulder, picks up a pillow, and starts suffocating the unconscious representation of Adam. Horrified, Adam interrupts the simulation. Burt defends himself by saying it wasn’t real, it was only thoughts in his head and he didn’t cause any harm. Is Burt immoral?

I believe, yes. Since Burt thought it was real, I would say he did something as wrong as if he did it for real. Of course, Adam may also have done something wrong by doing this intrusive prank, but I think this doesn’t change the badness of Burt’s character. It would be reasonable to treat Burt the same way as if he had actually suffocated Adam in real life. At least, that is how I view moral responsibility: the consequences don’t matter. For instance, we can imagine that another person, Carl sleepwalked and unwittingly suffocated Adam. Here, the action would actually cause real harm, but I think Carl has done nothing wrong. Thus, it is not what one causes, but what one intends and thinks that determines how one should be judged.

To conclude, it seems to me that if there is a thought, but they think it is real, it should be deemed wrong in the same way. They are a person that is willing to do something wrong, and they should be treated as such. When it is a fantasy that one is aware of to be fantasy, I find it far less likely to be bad. Perhaps the degree of bad acts that is caused by such fantasies adds some level of wrongness. Still, I’m not certain if this is particularly notable. All of this may be merely instrumental. If Burt did evil things in a simulation that he would never leave, and he would never harm anyone, I’m not sure the thoughts would actually be intrinsically wrong. Yet, I think it is our intention that we should hold as the true markers of our ethical character, not just the physical actions we take.

Every properly human act involves an intention, and the intention is the primary defining characteristic of an act. — Leontiskos

Medical doctors expect properly functioning humans to have the patellar spinal reflex.

I blink and snore without intention. There are all sorts of things humans do without intention.

Blinking and breathing are not acts in the philosophical sense.

Blinking and breathing are not acts in the philosophical sense. — Leontiskos

In that case I assume the following sentence says the same as what you wrote:

Every intentional human act involves an intention, and the intention is the primary defining characteristic of an act.

So the first proposition is a tautology, and I'm not seeing any good reason to believe the second proposition. Why think the intention is the primary defining characteristic of all acts?

Does ethics apply to thoughts? — NOS4A2

If you've ever reprimanded yourself for an unfair judgment or secretly 'taken back' a wish that someone would die, or immediately upon the impulse to strike someone for a trivial offense checked yourself and thought, 'That's not me!', then you already know perfectly well that it does. And knowing this is the reason for the self-censorship that forestalls a thousand unnecessary violent confrontations and social disgraces in each of our lives. We know what we ought to do and we know how we ought to think. The uncivilized savage within has impulses; the ethical superego controls them.

Is a man evil if he has evil thoughts, and good if he has good ones?

Not by itself. But thoughts invariably precede actions. The good man may have some bad thoughts - it's almost impossible not to - but his next impulse is to suppress those bad thoughts. The evil man indulges his evil thoughts and acts them out - and usually goes to great lengths to justify them, first to himself as "they owe me" or "it's my right" or "I'm defending freedom", and then to the world as elaborate moral or political or legal gobbledegook.

Why think the intention is the primary defining characteristic of all acts? — wonderer1

Because according to the two primary spheres in which we judge acts, law and morality, the assessment is first and foremost guided by what the agent believed themselves to be doing. This belief is a proximate intention, and specifies the act itself.

To take the example I already gave, you might see someone cutting into a man's flesh and conclude that he is a murderer. We might learn that he is actually a surgeon. Suppose instead we learn that he is a layman attempting to perform a surgical operation under duress. If the patient dies the layman will not be charged with murder, because murder requires a particular kind of intent and that kind of intent was not present. He might be charged with involuntary manslaughter, but this is a different crime than murder, and a different act than murder. "Good Samaritan Laws" are related to this, and are intended to limit the liability of acts which are performed with a particular kind of intention. The "insanity defense" is another way to see that acts are judged primarily according to intention.

Let's suppose that when Einstein presented his theories of relativity it was intentional. Why is the defining characteristic of those acts by Einstein his intentions rather than the increase in human understanding?

Because we are talking about moral acts. If we want to define the act that someone has carried out for the purpose of moral evaluation, then the primary defining characteristic is their intent. It defines precisely what they have done.

So if Einstein earnestly believed himself to be presenting a theory of relativity, then that is what he was doing, and that is the first point of reference for any judgment that occurs with respect to that act.

What is your alternative here? That we morally assess acts primarily according to factors unrelated to the intent of the agent? Morality is deeply connected to intent and volition. If you wish to contradict this then at some point you will have to offer your alternative.

(Sometime in the next week I hope to write an OP on moral acts. I am sure that thread will get into this in more detail.)

I think there is a lot that is interesting about human acts that is independent of whatever moral judgementalness might pass through people's minds.

Me too, but we happen to be in the ethics sub-forum, and that's why I am talking about ethics. :wink:

I think there is a lot that is interesting about human acts that is independent of whatever moral judgementalness might pass through people's minds. — wonderer1

We may not always assess our own acts according to moral precepts at the time*, but however those acts affect other people, they will certainly judge us.
*We always do, after the fact. Sometimes for years or decades or until we make some kind of atonement for the wrong ones or receive some kind of recognition for the right ones.