In reality, the doing of good is not so much for the benefit
of those to whom the good is done as it is for that of the doers, whose
moral faculties are activated and invigorated by the doing of it, and for that of the community, the shared values of which are ritually
asserted and vindicated by the doing of it. For this reason, good done
otherwise than by intention, especially good done in pursuance of
ends that are selfish or even "nontuistic," is not really "good" at all.
For this reason, too, actions taken from good motives count as good
even when in fact they do harm. By far the most effective way of
helping the poor is to keep profit-seekers competing vigorously for
their trade as consumers and for their services as workers; this,
however, is not a way of helping that affords members of the upper
classes the chance to flex their moral muscles or the community the
chance to dramatize its commitment to the values that hold it
together. The way to do these things is with a War on Poverty; even if
the War should turn out to have precious little effect on the incomes
of the poor—indeed, even if it should lower their incomes—the
undertaking would nevertheless represent a sort of secular religious
revival that affords the altruistic classes opportunities to bear witness
to the cultural ideal and, by doing so, to strengthen society's adherence
to it. One recalls Macaulay's remark about the attitude of the
English Puritans toward bear-baiting: that they opposed it not for the
suffering that it caused the bear but for the pleasure that it gave the
spectators. Perhaps it is not far-fetched to say that the present-day
outlook is similar: the reformer wants to improve the situation of the
poor, the black, the slum dweller, and so on, not so much to make
them better off materially as to make himself and the whole society
better off morally.
(Edward C. Banfield, The Unheavenly City Revisited [Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974], 274-5 [italics in original])
Note from KBJ: And now you know why progressives care about intentions rather than results. The minimum wage, for example, hurts the very people it is intended to help. Rent control hurts the very people it is intended to help. Welfare programs, by promoting dependence, hurt the very people they are intended to help. Affirmative-action programs, by undermining self-respect, hurt the very people they are intended to help. I could go on, but you get the point.
