Motives Matter

Today, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. This wasn't the first time I watched this movie, but it might be the first time a drew a connection between two quotes from one of the side characters, Governor Swann.

Just before the climactic battle begins, Governor Swann talks to his daughter about her decision to accept Commodore Norrington's proposal just to convince him to help rescue the person she actually loves, Will Turner. For the record, Governor Swann thinks that agreeing to marry Commodore Norrington was a good decision, but he said that "even a good decision, if made for the wrong reason, can be a bad decision."

Later in the film, thinking back on the actions of the main characters, which, despite their illegal nature, ultimately worked out to saving his kidnapped daughter, Governor Swann says that "perhaps, on the rare occasion pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy, piracy itself can be the right course."

Both of these quotes have basically the same message: motives matter. Sometimes, why you do something is just as important, or even more important, than what you do. Stealing a ship is illegal and usually immoral. Stealing a ship so you can use it to rescue someone might be acceptable. Accepting a proposal is usually a fine thing to do, but accepting a proposal as a means of manipulation is certainly not a fine thing. Then again, manipulating someone, while underhanded, might be acceptable, if one's intentions are good.

There's a moral gray area where people can do bad things for good reasons and good things for poor reasons. In these cases, I'm not sure how to determine what makes a decision good or bad. There are many "Thou Shalt Nots" which seem like axiomatic rules, but there are also notable exceptions to those rules, so breaking those rules must not always be evil acts. Personally, I think that God judges us mostly by our intentions. I may be taking this line out of context, but we read in the scriptures that "the Lord looketh on the heart." If our hearts are in the right place, I don't think our actions can be too far off.

Of course, we should try to keep the commandments and obey the rules to the extent that we can, but more importantly, we should always try to be good and do good, even if we have to venture into some morally-gray area to do so. Sometimes, saving some lives requires ending others. Sometimes being kind requires a lie. Sometimes, some rules need to be broken for the greater good. This is a very tricky situation to be in, and it's probably best to try to avoid these morally-gray areas whenever possible. But whatever we do, we should try to make sure that we're doing it for good reasons, because those reasons might matter just as much as the decisions themselves.