Doug, an exemplary student at a local college, has decided to go for a hike in the woods on a spring afternoon. Doug is just about to rest and have a snack when he sees Derek, a fellow student, and a rival of Doug's for the seat of valedictorian, trapped and in great pain with his legs underneath an extremely large boulder. While Doug's initial instinct is to free Derek from his unpleasant situation, Doug is a moral egoist. Moral egoism is the doctrine that states it is always morally acceptable to do what we believe to be in our own self-interest. Because of Doug's ethical position, he decides that it is in his best interest to, rather than save Derek, roll the boulder completely over Derek thus removing any competition for the seat of valedictorian. This is no problem for Doug, as Doug is much larger than Derek, and the boulder is positioned in such a way as to make killing Derek an easy affair. Furthermore, it is clear to Doug that there is little possibility that he would be charged with murder, for he could easily make the scenario appear as an accident. Doug positions himself behind the giant piece of rock and pushes it forward. Fortunately for Derek, however, Doug has misjudged the position of the boulder, and the rock falls harmlessly to the side of Derek completely freeing him from harm.

Although the preceding story is slightly far-fetched, the story prompts some philosophers to point out what they think might be a flaw in act utilitarianism. If we judge the event purely on the consequences of Doug's actions, are we to say that Doug's actions were moral and deserving of moral praise despite the fact that his intentions, from the viewpoints of most, were nothing short of cruel? To fully adhere to the demands of act utilitarianism, we must, by acknowledging intention's causal relationship with actions, distribute moral praise according to act utilitarianism's principle of maximizing the total interest.

Act utilitarianism describes an action as moral when it produces an outcome with the maximum amount of happiness, or, as some might prefer, fulfills the greatest degree of interest. Thus, act utilitarians attempt to satisfy the maximum amount of interest in their actions or “maximize the total well-being of everyone affected” (Barcalow 82). In this way, moral decisions can be calculated by weighing the total amount of satisfaction that each entity involved receives. The decision that produces the greatest total amount of satisfaction, or happiness if the reader prefers, is the most ethical course of action to take. In the example of Doug and Derek, we have an occurrence that is a bit unlikely. Doug, having every intent to perform an act that is almost surely immoral from an act utilitarian perspective, has done just the opposite, the end result of Doug's actions were very ethical. We will assume in this circumstance that ending Derek's life will produce much less overall happiness than saving him; this is probably a safe assumption, as Derek most likely values his life more than Doug values his position as valedictorian. What we must note here is the uneasy relationship between our intentions and their consequences. Normally, if we intend for our actions to accomplish some task, if we are even moderately competent, we at least come within range of achieving our goal. If our intent is to do a deed such as caring for the sick or donating money to feed the hungry, and we are truly set on accomplishing our goal, it is unlikely that we will fail so miserably as to detract from the total amount of happiness. On the other side of things, if we are dead set on making our neighbor's life a living hell, the actions that follow from our intentions are unlikely to contribute to the greater satisfaction of everyone involved. In this way, we can say that the morality of our actions is, a lot of the time, in accordance with the morality of our intentions, or the expected moral result of our actions is usually not too far from the actual moral result. Sometimes, however, we must acknowledge that our intentions miss the target by much more than we could expect, and something radically different occurs. What results could be ethically completely different than the original intention. In Doug's case, the consequences of his actions were ethical, but he acted in such a way as to expect an unethical consequences. In this way, we must separate the morality of the intention, or, perhaps as a more appropriate term, projected consequence, from the actual consequence.

Giving Doug moral praise is not only unacceptable, even from an act utilitarian perspective, but also fundamentally unethical. In doing so, we are approving of people acting to try and obtain an unethical consequence that, most often, does in fact lead to an unethical consequence. Because praising an unethical intention is likely to promote unethical consequences, by praising such intentions, we are being immoral because the consequences of our actions will not, ultimately, contribute the greater happiness. If in some strange case, however, we knew that all of the consequences of Doug's actions were inversely moral from his intentions, and that every time he tried to inflict harm he wound up contributing to the greater happiness, we would be right to praise Doug for his immoral intentions. What is important is that, to be truly adherent to act utilitarianism, we acknowledge the consequences of our moral praise. For this reason we should judge the morality of what we believe to be Doug's projected consequences when deciding whether or not to warrant Doug moral praise, and conclude that it is in the best interest of everyone not to act in such a way as to encourage Doug's intentions, so Doug should not receive moral praise despite performing a moral act. The reader should notice that the act of dispensing moral praise or criticism is also subject to the same rules of ethics as the preceding moral or immoral acts themselves; what happened in the past is not important. What is important is the consequences of our acts of distributing moral praise. If this was not the case, certain responses to morally relevant acts would contradict the very acts that they were judging. In order to avoid this contradiction, we must respond to moral acts in such a way to maximize the total amount of happiness involved. The point then yields, that to follow through with act utilitarianism in the highest degree, we must recognize the effects that our own praise or ridicule produce, and, we can presume, that the best way to promote moral utilitarian acts is to praise moral utilitarian intentions.

Looking once more at the scenario involving Doug's intention to crush Derek with a large boulder, if we place ourselves in the position of a bystander able to observe both Doug's actions as well as intentions, we can clearly see that it is not only justified, but our moral imperative to ridicule Doug's intentions. This ridicule is not solely to discourage Doug from acting in ways in the future that violate our moral convictions, but also to discourage others, and perhaps even ourselves from acting in manners that are likely to lead to immoral consequences. Although the end result may have been completely ethical, unethical intentions do not merit moral praise from the utilitarian perspective for sole reason that these intentions are, much more often than not, a recipe for immoral acts.