"I'm sure they had good intentions"

[aesmael]

Lately it seems I have been seeing this or variations with especial frequency (may even have said it once or twice, alas). It also seems to me this is very rarely a helpful thing to say. So far as I am aware, most people do have good intentions and seldom do things out of malicious intent; pointing out the person in question likely had good intentions seems a largely irrelevant distraction since it is not normally in question.

Where it would be helpful to say is I think in situations where it appears a person is being demonised, cast as monstrous in a way which obscures inquiry.

Possibly it would be helpful at this point to state outright that I am not opposed to inquiry into people's motives, but that it is not useful to reflexively defend the motives of a person or people as pure when it is not really in question that they 'meant well', especially when this carries also the implicit suggestion others should be less harsh in response.

Comments

[lost-angelwings.livejournal.com]

I agree :) Often it's just thrown in when ppl offend and it's like "but I'm sure they meant well" or "I'm sure they didn't mean to" and that's fine, but nobody is saying that they are a bad person, but that what they said/did was offensive or hurtful. :\ If you accidentally smack somebody with your elbow, you obv didn't mean to, but you should still apologize :) I think often it's brought up (when the discussion is not about ppl's motives but about the consequences of their actions/words) as a red herring to avoid having to acknowledge responsiblity or nething. :(

Also I rly hate it when ppl who said/did something sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic/etc, say that b/c they didn't MEAN to offend or MEAN to be cruel, then they cannot be offensive or hurtful.

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

I think you managed to convey my meaning better than I did.

[aesmael.livejournal.com]

It does seem a lot about intentions, the idea that intentions determine outcomes, so if a person did not mean to harm, no harm could have been done, which seems quite silly to me. Seems attached to the idea only bad people do bad things, as if such distinctions were clear and obvious, and that ignorance is not only excuse but absolution.

But ya, intending or not, aware or not, the sort of situation this arises is one where it would generally be beneficial to take a look at what went wrong and how to fix or avoid it in future, not try to make it go away with an appeal to intentions.

[flynnacatri.livejournal.com]

Gah! That one drives me NUTS, I always want to go "but what, specifically? Did they think it was a good idea? Were they actually intending something else entirely? Did they have good intentions but overruled them/ddn't think to hard about their motives? WHY did they have to have intentions at all?"