Which is better to do wrong with right motive or wrong with right motive?

Question

Basically is motive a higher moral priority than the action itself? On one hand the person's heart is in the right place. On the other however the action itself can create great suffering or alleviation of suffering depending on the action itself.

Answer 1

It is always better to do the right thing . No matter what the motive doing it is ! Lets say someone is drowning and you are there. You also know that the person drowning is wealthy. If you save that person's life, no matter what reason they are alive !

Answer 2

I think,

it's got to be about the 'sufferer' of such action : - )

What does he/or she think of this action that done unto them?

Do they care about the motive or the end-result?

e.g. I have brain cancer, I'm in pain, you will shoot me now or I go design machines punish sinners...and I would like you to shoot me to stop me--before I go alter ego...then you are free to do it, being righteous in both the motive and the action.

But if you failed to stop me from the turning, and certainly I don't want that bullet, though I still go manhunt, then your action is,

to ME questionable in both action and motive, yet

to the wide public, right in both action and motive.

You are actually asking about what it means TO YOU.

Then it either comes down to which side's opinion do you take, or your purely isolated-from-external-environment judgement, in which, isolation may not be completely possible, for education in your early years is inevitable.

Still, both side have told you, whether it's right or wrong.

What I think is: it's about PERSPECTIVES, it might NOT be universal.

You'll have to pick a judge, not asking all to speak the same words.

Yet if one's doing whatever to onself, therein should be no such problem, no one really understand what you are thinking, or you've chosen to be right or wrong.

Yet, can 'Choosing Wrong Willingly' be 'Right'?

Just Perspectives.

: - )

Right OR Wrong is a human design, and man is flawed. On a Long enough timeline, things change, and things go 'wrong'.

: - )

Answer 3

I think if your intentions are from the heart you can't go wrong. We don't control the outcome. Grace sometimes isn't so graceful in appearance but when the whole picture is seen, you can see it all turned out perfectly.

Answer 4

Based on whether it's better for the PERSON (not for someone else) doing this right or wrong...

It's truly better to the wrong with the right motive because you thought that it would help.  Suppose you lied for a friend so that he/she will be happy...

To do the right with the wrong motive is so untruthful in the heart that it shows that the person's not good.

Answer 5

wrong with right motives or right with wrong motives.

Right - with wrong motives.

Right is the right thing to do.

People regularly kill other people by trying to help and getting it wrong, so when the vain self taught pseudo-medic steps in and saves their life so he can claim the credit and the glory - was it wrong? he did it for purely selfish gain, whereas the incompetent bystander did it to help the patient.

I know who I'd rather have standing there is it was me laying on the floor with the clock ticking.

Answer 6

Morality is defined by the individual who is influenced by upbringing and society.

Your question doesn't consider motive and action, but rather, morality. Morality changes within groups, cultures, and time.

Answer 7

Neither is right since both create suffering by someone.  Its just the lesser of two evils.

Answer 8

Right with the wrong motives.  Results are always better than the intent, which is largely unknown except to the person with the motives.  And if you examine intent you will find that it is often has an unconscious component that is unknown even to the person with the motives.

Answer 9

Wrong with the right motive.You can liken this to a doctor who is giving an injection to a child and the child is screaming against the injection.The motive is to cure the child.But the child 'perceives' it as wrong because it is painful.

Answer 10

to do right with the right motive.but it depends upon the situation and the person you are dealing with.

Answer 11

"is motive a higher moral priority than the action itself?"

comparing the relavant moral priority beween motive itself and action itself is inconsequential and arbitrary what we should concern ourselves with judging how well we mix the two

no second bests - only mindful action will do - because only quality counts

Answer 12

I think if the MOTIVE is RIGHT, and things go wrong, they were not INTENDED to go wrong, and you cannot actually blame that person for the result of that action. However, if you do something right but with the WRONG motive, it will come back and bite you in the karmic scheme of things.

Therefore the RIGHT MOTIVE supersedes everything.

Answer 13

you can do right with the right motive and wrong with the right motivebut you can never do right with the  wrong motive.

Answer 14

Wow thats something to think about..... they are both the same because they will both cause some kind of damage, it is like a win lose, lose win situation. It really depends on the situation itself to see which is the right choice.

Answer 15

Motive is everything. We have a whole legal system based off it. There's a reason that we have lesser punishment for manslaughter than for murder - and no punishment at all for self-defense. I mean, unless you want to have a police force or an army that isn't capable of using force to defend its citizens? Because what law enforcement does is basically assault, harm or kill people under the pretext of protecting the public interest. It's all about the greater moral good.

Answer 16

One has the choice of doing that which will be beneficial to ones self and to all others while doing no harm or as little harm as possible to the same.

Right and wrong are subjective terms of judgment that have no meaning within the reality of life as all things are simply what they are and nothing more.

If one does that which is not beneficial to ones self or others, regardless of ones intentions, one has still caused harm.

The means are not equal to the end yet the journey is more important than the arrival.

Be well and, please, be wise.

Answer 17

Morality is a poor benchmark for making any choice, for that matter, the only benchmark needed is approval of the Self, if it is so, then our choices will always be for the greater good, no matter how they might appear outwardly.

Moreover, 'Moral compasses' vary with time, space and region, whereas the soul compass that always stays steady, firm, and absolute!

A moral compasses are needed only when we do not access the soul compass.

Moral compass is easy to by-pass /ignore, but a soul compass is always there, to haunt us, if we make a choice that strays from our internal guidance, or from greater good.