Accidental Evil?

Is it possible to do evil by accident? I've been writing a story for myself in which the main character, Eloise, is trying very hard to never do anything evil, not even sins of omission. She found herself in a situation where a band of pirates were likely to be destroyed by a storm, and she had the power to save them, to leave them to their fate, or to ensure their destruction.

Normally, a hero's first instinct would be to save others. A virtuous person should save as many lives as they can. Yet, these are pirates. These are thieves and murderers. If they were spared, they'd go on, killing and stealing and committing other acts of evil, for which Eloise would be at least partly responsible.

Alternatively, Eloise could have sealed their fates. Eloise had the opportunity to ensure that all of those pirate died in that storm, taking their evil to their watery graves. Yet, could she be sure that they were all evil? There are likely to be at least a few innocent people caught up in almost any wrong crowd. Perhaps many of those pirates could have been decent people, had life given them the chance. To cause or even to allow those potentially innocent people to die would be a great evil, for which Eloise would have been directly responsible.

Of course, she could have washed her hands of the whole situation and let nature take its course. But if she had done so, tragic mistakes would have been made. Some who deserved death would have survived and some who deserved life would have died. Doing nothing would have ensured the deaths of some innocents and the survival of some wicked. It was clearly the worst option. Eloise had to do something, to either save them or condemn them to death, but which should she choose? She didn't want to make the wrong choice by accident.

Noting her concerns, her mentor, another fictional character in this story I've been telling myself, said that it isn't possible to do evil by accident. So long as a person is trying to do good, that counts as Good for them, regardless of the results. But as soon as I wrote those words, I second-guessed them. There are plenty of people who do evil, thinking they're doing good. There are even people who do what they consider to be "necessary" evils, for the sake of the "greater good." Evil has been done in the name of good, by those who may have sincerely thought that they were trying to do good, and yet it was evil, nonetheless, wasn't it?

In the end, Eloise saved the pirates, pledging to deal with the problems they'd cause after she broke up the fight between the kraken and the leviathan, and I counted that as a Good act. But ultimately, I'm not sure. I think that it may be possible to do evil by accident, and though that may not fairly stain the accidental evil-doer's soul, it's still evil caused by the actions of those who were trying to do good. Naturally, that's not as damning as if they were doing evil out of apathy or spite, but it's still an instance of evil for which the accidental evil-doer is at least partly responsible.

I'm sure God judges mistakes differently than He judges deliberate acts, but it's still somewhat troubling to me to think that people can commit acts of evil by accident.