Iorist ethics

I believe good intentions IOR good results is okay. I’m calling it iorist ethics. Ior for the logical gate of inclusive or, and, it’s an initialism for intentions or results.

Consequentialists are like:
Good ints, good rez: 👍🏻
Good ints, bad rez: 🚫
Bad ints, good rez: 👍🏻
Bad ints, bad rez: 🚫

And deontologists are like:
Good ints, good rez: 👍🏻
Good ints, bad rez: 👍🏻
Bad ints, good rez: 🚫
Bad ints, bad rez: 🚫

But I’m like:
Good ints, good rez: 👍🏻
Good ints, bad rez: 👍🏻
Bad ints, good rez: 👍🏻
Bad ints, bad rez: 🚫

The bar for evil gets really high because you need to both mean ill and do ill. The world’s nastiest actual cannibal if he fails at eating you and ends up saving you? Complete hero, gets a medal on Yavin.

Now, don’t worry: even if you actually are evil by meaning ill and doing ill, like you’re acting selfishly and duplicitously in a way that hurts others, there’s still a way back through forgiveness. You can become good and stop being evil. Don’t misinterpret that as an out to deliberately keep being evil knowing there’s forgiveness waiting for you. Instead be inspired by the forgiveness and change your ways immediately! Or stay good if you’re already good.

Now, just like consequentialism and deontologism, what actions actually count as good or bad, just and unjust, fair and unfair, cool or dorky is another question entirely. This is just about what “layer” the ethics operate on. Whether good intentions really pave the road to hell or if they’re cool actually even if you accidentally mess up.

Existentialist ethics?

But Sandra, haven’t you pledged allegiance to existentialist ethics before? Yup! Like deontologists, they are all about intentions; unlike deontologists (who are rules-based), the existentialists are all about using your own head & heart and case-by-casing it. I still love that approach over consequentialism. I’m just adding some celebration for the accidental heroes who mean ill but end up doing good by mistake.