Why do we judge ourselves by our intentions but judge others by their actions?

In this world, everybody is a judge. We always have this idea that some things are right and others are wrong. This forms the basis of why we consider ourselves as perfect beings in some circumstances. In the process of doing this, we become judgmental and only our worldviews are real.

Credit

In the face of man, no matter how noble your intentions are, if the consequences of your action are bad, you will be judged badly. 

In Nigeria, for instance, if you help a hit and run victim on the highway then you risk death sentence or life imprisonment if the victim in question dies. 

This is one big problem that even in 21st century, a country like Nigeria still prosecute such act blindly. In  advance countries where they have good electricity and functional CCTV, people don't get prosecuted  for such noble act.

This is also another problem we have with our judicial system. A judge in the court of law focuses more on the facts before him that provides supporting grounds to the action in question rather than the intentions of the accused.

It is also true that intentions may not be known easily because we do not know what the person was thinking before carrying out the act. However, why do we want our personal intentions to be judged and not our actions?

A lady who dresses attractively, no matter her intentions, would be be considered 'a whore'! At least, the society would judge her as such. Her reason might be that she feels comfortable in the cloth and decided to wear it so as to feel 'free'. But the society will look at the impact of her appearance on men and judge her actions on that basis.

Is it that we were programmed this way from the beginning or society shaped our thought towards this direction? Most of our behaviors (if not all) are learnt from the society. It could be argued therefore that society thought us to reason this way.

A society where walking with bra and pants, for instance, means nothing will not be bothered about whether the intentions were noble or not. Noble and ignoble are moral judgments and since we are moral beings, it becomes everybody's responsibility to judge which one is good or bad.

We need to look at noble intentions when judging an action. By this, i do not mean we should support everything simply because it might have good intention. My point is, we should consider intentions first before judging the action. Not all intentions produce the desired result. When this happens, we should put ourselves in the person's shoes to truly understand the rationale behind such action.

Thanks for reading my blog. You boy @smyle the philosopher.