A Thought Experiment Around "Intentionality" For You

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Imagine this ...
A vice President of a major corporation goes to the Chairman of the Board and says, "OK, we've got this new policy and it's going to make huge amounts of money for our company but it's also going to harm the environment". And the Chairman of the Board says, "Look, I know this policy is going to harm the environment but I don't care at all about that, all I care about is making as much money as we possibly can. So let's go ahead and implement the policy." So they go ahead and implement the policy and sure enough it ends up harming the environment.

Question: Did he harm the environment intentionally?

Now, let's change one word, "harm" to"help" ...
A vice President of a major corporation goes to the Chairman of the Board and says, "OK, we've got this new policy and it's gonna make huge amounts of money for our company and it's also going to help the environment". And the Chairman of the Board says, "Look, I know this policy is going to help the environment but I don't care at all about that, all I care about is making as much money as we possibly can. So let's go ahead and implement the policy." So they go ahead and implement the policy and sure enough it ends up helping the environment.

Question: Did the Chairman of the Board help the environment intentionally?


LEAVE YOUR THOUGHTS ...

Via PhilosophyBites podcast with Joshua Knobe

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