I believe that there are no such thing as a bad action, there is only a bad consquence. For example, lying is not wrong at all; it is only consquences of lying that are wrong. Lying to save someones life would be perfectly acceptable, whereas lying to kill someone would be wrong. The problem with this line of thinking is that people are so self-centered they would not be able to properly evaluate the consquences of their actions. A person is generally unble to think outside themselves and look at tghe bigger picture.
Concepts like "bad" or "wrong" are relative to the situation, culture, and person commiting it (aka its intentions, etc).
So and action is relative, but in society nowadays the thing that matters the most is the "intention", not so much the consecuences. If you kill someone to defend yourself, it is not immoral, even though the consequence is "killing someone". If you lie to save someones life, it is not immoral even though its consequence would be "giving someone false information, depriving them from knowledge, etc".....
Both intentions and consequences are important in morality (not so much the act itself, even though the act is the one remembered mostly, and it is the one that actually "defines" the consequences, and most times the intentions), but intentions are more important.
In the end, you can say there is a bad action, a bad consequence, and a bad intention, as they aren't exclusive, but in overall, intentions prevail (at least in western morality, and law and ethics in most cases)...
I think the only reason intentions might be viewed as superior to consquences is that intentions can give some insight into the future.
Fro example, manslaughter is not as bas as pre-meditated murder because a pre-meditated murder has a higher probablity of killing again and should be treated harsher to try to fix that problem. Someone with good intentions would be treated in a less harsh manner because the probablitiy of them doing a bad action would be lower. Ulitmately, consquences beat intentions because intentions are only guessed at. It is impossible to fully know someones intentions
Generally intentions are "guessed" or deduced via confession, or by methodically investigating the crime scene and the situation and taking conclusions from that...
And of course, one goes to jail ultimately to be punished because of one's intentions, and socially it would make you never have those intentions again.
Consequences only beat intentions in the way of what the future will be, but in the end consequences are boud to intentions, as one's intention is to make certain act have certain consequence. But legally, morally, etc, intentions beat consequences..
What if someone killed your parents just to kill them? What if someone killed your parents because the money he would take from them would feed his family. His action was bad but his intentions were good. He intended to save his family from starvation. He could have gotten a job or even two but he chose those actions. What if on the witness stand in court this man lies about killing your parents because he wants to go home and see his family and take care of them? At some point you might say he is wrong or you might not. just curious to see what you think... I even gave you a kudo
Hes wrong. He did not have good intentions because he did not factor in the welfare of all parties. He should have thought about what was the best for everyone. And his intentions were not good. If he had needed to save his family from starvation he would have been stealing food.
One does not go to jail for intentions. One goes to jail for a consquence of an action. For example, someone who is drving drunk is not punished as hard as someone who runs over another person while driving drunk. They both committed the same action, but the consquence for the action means that they are treated differently. Thats kind of a bad example because you could say that they are different actions, so imagine this scenario. A lifeguard falls asleep on the stand, and is fired. Another lifeguard falls asleep on the stand, and a kid drowns to death on his watch. Which one would you imagine would be punished worse? The lifeguard who's action had the consquence of killing someone. The action is unimportant; it is the consquence the action has on others that is important.
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