A Ranking of the Almost-Guilty People from the Least to the Most Worst

The moral philosophy of an obsessive compulsive organizer of things

By MARTIN REZNY

What you’ve got there are some great moral dilemmas. If I had to try to make sense of how bad which ones are, which I kind of do, I guess I would try to figure out various combinations of intent and effect.

In terms of intent, I’d separate it into the level of severity of the intent (how immoral is the idea or a wish one has, sort of in a vacuum), and the level of malice present in the intent (whether or not the person actually wishes harm to come to others).

In terms of effect, the main difference would be between a situation where no one gets hurt, and a situation where some people actually do get hurt (and how severely), while the important consideration can also be whether the person in question causes that harm directly, or merely allows it to happen indirectly.

Ordering is always a bit tricky, but I guess most people would agree that real harm and malicious intent combined with direct action are the worst combo, while indirect action in combination with no intended harm and no actual harm are found on the other end of the spectrum.

The wildcard modifier would be the severity of the intent/harm, which would greatly depend on whether or not any harm has taken place at all, and I would actually consider intent to have in general greater weight towards determining guilt than the level of harm done. All considered, I see it like so:

1. The Curious — People who do not wish to harm anyone or break any law, and also don’t have any significant immoral thoughts or urges, but are interested at least at some point in their life in experiencing approximate versions of particular immoral things in a safe way. It could mean watching execution videos, playing at rape with a consenting partner, etc.
2. The Tempted — People who have immoral thoughts or urges, but never act on them because they realize that those are wrong, and/or don’t actually wish to harm anyone. It could even be thoughts of murder or rape, and they would still be literally harmless, since there’s no harm actually done.
3. The Cowardly — People who have immoral thoughts or urges and would act on them, if they weren’t afraid of the consequences or generally too scared to follow through. Again, the severity of the thoughts makes little difference, since nothing is actually acted upon.
4. The Reformed — People who had at some point commited immoral or even illegal actions, but have since recognized the error of their ways, truly regret their actions, and have resolved to never do those things again. This could include past drug addicts, violent offenders, or even sex offenders.
5. The Compromised — People who do some good things, maybe even mostly good things, but also do occasionally some clearly immoral things that negatively impact others, even if those are technically legal, or socially accepted. They may generally mean well, but may not be able to help themselves, such as in the example of pushing products on people that will only ruin their life, or in the case of hiring an occasional prostitute who is a minor in a country where the laws allow it, exploiting legal loopholes.
6. The Enablers — People who may not directly do anything that harms another human being, but do something (or fail to do something) that results in other people causing direct harm to someone else. The main example here would be people who watch child pornography, or in any other way help create demand for some kind of abuse of animals or humans. These people should be doing so either despite being aware of what they’re causing, or while being wilfully ignorant of the consequences.
7. The Ill-Intent — People who may not actually do anything technically illegal, but wish other people harm and can easily resort to making the lives of others miserable by threats, gossip, or direct hurtful words. This can include people who play sadistic mind games with other people, like trying to talk other people into committing suicide, or are scheming to get someone evicted, or their children being taken away by child services, etc., simply out of spite or jealousy, or just because they can, to feel powerful.

What do you think? Would you add or change anything?

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