# Difference between motive and intent



## Confessor

In the book _Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview_, the author(s) takes a certain moral action and then breaks it down into four components, motive, intent, means, and consequence. The language is unclear as to whether these are the four defining factors present in every moral action or not, but in any case, it seems reasonable, and it certainly applies to the one action cited.

From a philosophical (rather than legal -- though the differences would not be too large) standpoint, what is the difference between the first two, motive and intent? Thus far, I have roughly figured that motive involves a reason of _justification_ whereas intent involves a reason of _teleology_. E.g. if a man catches his wife in adultery, he may, in a furious rage, murder the man committing adultery with her, killing him with a nearby pistol. His motive, then, would be that the man slept with his wife (he would use this to justify his actions, though he would obviously be mistaken), while his intent (the purpose for which he is acting) would be to kill the man, using the means of shooting a gun. The consequences would be a culpable husband, a dead adulterer, a distraught adulteress, etc.

Is this anywhere near correct? Does anyone have wisdom to impart?


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## Zenas

The motive is the fuel for the intent. The motive is the reason why someone is going to do something, the intent is what they desire the outcome of that something to be.


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## py3ak

It seems to be simply that motive is the fountain from which my actions spring, whereas intent is the goal to which they are directed.


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## MMasztal

py3ak said:


> It seems to be simply that motive is the fountain from which my actions spring, whereas intent is the goal to which they are directed.


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## Jimmy the Greek

motive = why
intent = what (as in the goal)


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## Confessor

py3ak said:


> It seems to be simply that motive is the fountain from which my actions spring, whereas intent is the goal to which they are directed.



Thank you for this succinct definition, Ruben.

Given this, how do you think the motives and intents of various actions can be identified? E.g., say that someone is hungry and therefore wants to eat. Would his motive be that he _wants_ to satisfy his hunger, and his intent is to satisfy his hunger? Or, let's take a person who is publicly shamed and desires to vengefully shame the person who just humiliated him. It seems that his motive would be the desire of revenge for his personal humiliation, and his intent would be vengeance via the humiliation of the other person.

Are motives and intents always construed in such a way; are they really this similar? Is motive just a desire for an intent to be effectuated?

If so, this would make a good deal of sense, but for whatever reason (a hunch, maybe), I thought the differences would be more significant.


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## py3ak

I would say his motive is that he is hungry, and his intent is to eat. Unless he's as painfully self-aware as Dostoyevsky or James Joyce it seems unlikely that his intent will be as precisely parsed as "obtaining nourishment to satisfy my hunger". 
In the other case I would say that his motive is his anger/shame from what was done to him, and vengeance is his intent. 
I don't think motive is just a desire for an intent to be effectuated, because the same motive could result in many intents. For instance, if you have been slandered by a coworker, that could motivate you to state the truth and await vindication or it could motivate you to set the coworker's desk on fire.
Motive and intent are obviously going to be related, and sometimes the distinctions between them might be simply questions of phrasing, but it doesn't seem that they are quite as united as your definition above might suggest.


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