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at you with the intention of injuring you and
actually does so, won’t you become enraged
and feel an urge to retaliate in like manner? You
would be perfectly justified in feeling that this
wrong should be ‘punished’ because the act was
‘intentional.’ Here it is a question not just of some
random happening, but of right and wrong
action, good and bad intentions, in a word, of
‘ethics’.
The examples chosen to clarify this point are
of a simple nature in that the outcome of the
action is immediately apparent and, moreover,
in the second case, it is possible to make an
instant moral judgment. But there are other much
more complex situations in life where
wrongdoing goes undetected, its effects may
be hidden or delayed for long periods, and the
culprits may never be brought to book either by
moral condemnation of society or in a court of
law. Sometimes evildoing is, of course, perceived
as such, but the miscreant is so clever and
resourceful that he is able to escape punishment,
