Unintended Consequences

Introduction

Unintended consequences infect our lives, frequently rearing their heads in the outcomes of our actions. We tend to recall the ones that negatively affect us though we might not realise that they have surfaced at all if their effects were not harmful. However, when adversely affected, the prudent may strive to consider them as lessons learnt, incorporating these hard-earned lessons consciously or unconsciously into their future actions. They try to understand how these unintended consequences wormed into their plans and then modify future plans to avoid the possibility of their arising.

The fear of negative unintended consequences inspires in us caution to tread carefully, though by its nature, even the modifications that we incorporate from previous lessons bring in themselves a cost and possibly further unanticipated and hence unintended consequences. By its very nature as a lack of intention on our part which nonetheless brings around unanticipated results and outcomes, unintended consequences are only known ex post after the event. In that way, they seem almost unavoidable though by their lack of necessity, they are not necessarily inevitable.

This paper aims to examine the nature of the phenomena of unintended consequences. To convince the reader of the importance of what appears to be a pervasive and yet understudied phenomenon, the essay starts by examining examples of unintended consequences before analysing its meaning, why and how it arises. Given its nature of appearing even in our best-laid plans, the paper will consider who, if anyone, is responsible. It concludes with suggestions of how to live with what appears to be inescapable and unintended consequences.
Why are Unintended Consequences Interesting?

Action leads to consequences and hence the place to look for unintended consequences is after the completion of actions. Actions are carried out with a certain intent. We raise the fork to our mouths to eat. We eat to satisfy our hunger or if we have no hunger, we might eat out of habit. We walk to get to a destination. If our walking was just exercising without a destination in mind, then our intention was to keep fit. What we do not intend while eating is to choke to death on the food or while walking, to be knocked down by a car. However, these calamities do occur and when they do, these unintended consequences tend to give us pain and regret though we might not be to blame since we lacked intent.

We have become familiar with the destructive effects of climate change. Weather-related disasters have increased in frequency and severity. Flood-prone areas are experiencing floods not only more often but with greater force while arid regions have the opposite problem, with more frequent and intense droughts. Animal and plant species have in the meantime gone extinct due to these climate effects.

The stoical among us may acknowledge that we reap the seeds we have sown in our release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere but when Colonel Edwin Drake first struck oil on an industrial scale in 1859,[1] could he have anticipated the deleterious effects of pollution and global warming felt by humankind over 100 years later? If he had known, would he have ceased and desisted from oil-well drilling, concealing his engineering designs from the world? If he did, he would literally have kept us in the dark since we would not have the kind of electrical lighting we have today. We would still be going around on horses since the advent of the motor car would have been nigh impossible without a source of portable fuel such as petroleum. Our societies would be rather differently structured since the industrial revolution would not have occurred, at least in the form that it did happen and with it the advent of capitalism.

For all the now-recognised harm of fossil fuels, they also changed the world in some good ways. Even climate change with its destructive force comes with some benefits. Some of these include the opening of mineral-rich lands and navigable sea lanes in the Arctic region. Warmer temperatures may make regions previously unsuitable for winemaking, such as South England, the new centres of viticulture while destroying the renowned vineyards of Bordeaux and Champagne.[2]

For Drake, climate change was no doubt not on his mind since it was a concept formulated years after his discovery. It is an unintended consequence though the same cannot be said of the planners who are salivating over the profits from Arctic resources and shipping or the prospective vine-growers in the UK. These potential outcomes are now foreseen though it may seem unjustified to project onto their plans any intentions to exacerbate climate change for their private benefit. Besides, Drake as an individual is not to be blamed since it is not the small-scale use of petroleum that is leading to climate change. It is the widespread use of it by individuals and industry, that is causing so much pollution such that the planet cannot through its natural processes absorb the CO2 and other pollutants, that is leading to climate change.

However, more local or individualised set of actions can indeed set off large-scale ramifications. The Biblical story of Adam and Eve is a prime instance, with the punishment for their “original sin” afflicting all of humankind including those yet to be born. Their innocent frolic in the Garden of Eden was brought to an abrupt end when they partook of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were tempted by the devil, incarnate in the form of a serpent, which promised them that they would “be like God, knowing good and evil,” though they had been previously warned by their Creator that they “will surely die” if they did partake.[3]

Drawing on Søren Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the event, we first have to understand that the couple were epistemically innocent. Since they had yet to eat of the tree of knowledge, they did not know the distinction between good and evil and what those concepts meant. They were created to be immortal and hence did not understand what was meant by death, though as Kierkegaard pointed out, they might have been able to intuit from God’s tone that it was something threatening. Had they known the consequences, really understood what would happen should they have eaten the forbidden fruit, would they have eaten it nonetheless?

Would they have done it if they knew they would be cast out of paradise, that they would have to toil, suffer pain and death, and not just for themselves but for all generations who came from and after them? The Biblical story must be the first instance of a paradox ever if we accept its origin as pre-antiquity. Adam and Eve were innocent of the knowledge of good and evil and yet for them to fully comprehend the decision they faced, they had to have such knowledge since otherwise they could not understand what the consequences of disobedience could possibly even mean. How then could they even make a proper decision?[4]

Regardless of whether you accept the authenticity of the Biblical account, the reader would be able to appreciate it as a paradigmatic example of how ignorance can lead to unintended consequences. Adam and Eve were not intent on bringing suffering into the world, they simply were ignorant of what death, good and evil might mean, i.e. an ignorance of information in their current time that could aid their decision-making. Certainly they were also ignorant of the unintended consequences brought about by their actions but that is an ignorance of the future which is characteristic of all unintended consequences. If they were aware, sincere and truly cognisant of the meaning of death and evil, one would expect that they would have refrained. This refraining is of course a counterfactual, a speculation on what could have happened if they acted otherwise than they actually did. As with the logic of counterfactual conditionals,[5] nothing truthful can be said about the consequent arising from what, as antecedent, did not in fact take place.

Fast-forward to the 20th century, when Albert Einstein worked out his theory of relativity, did he foresee that its famed equation, E=mc2, could be used to create weapons of mass destruction? If he did foresee it, did he intend for his theories to be used in such a way? Is he innocent or does he have some responsibility for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and possibly the end of the human race should a full blown nuclear war take place in the future? More generally, are scientists (like Einstein), inventors, discoverers, innovators (like Darke) and entrepreneurs responsible for the unintended consequences of their actions?

Even if we are willing to indemnify the scientists, engineers and technologists who ‘merely’ came up with foundational theories that have dire unintended consequences, how about those who fully understood the consequences? J. Robert Oppenheimer, the head of the Manhattan Project related his thoughts on viewing the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in 1945: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” words he took from Hindu scripture Bhagavad Gita, but would henceforth be connected with him as the father of the atomic bomb.[6] The destructive force of nuclear bombs is not an unintended consequence – death and destruction is clearly intended as Oppenheimer admits in his quote. With intention comes responsibility but what if there was a lack of intention?

Einstein’s equation published in 1905 explains the release of energy from matter such as the way it occurs in a death-bringing nuclear bomb and a peaceful energy-generating nuclear reactor. The same knife can be used to slice and dice life-giving food or to take away life. Einstein said: “I do not consider myself the father of the release of atomic energy. My part in it was quite indirect.” He claims that his “only act” contributing to the production of nuclear weapons was his letter to President Roosevelt in 1939 where he warned that it was better for the United States to develop the technology before Nazi Germany did. He later expressed regret for this letter since Germany did not manage to develop nuclear bombs.[7] Does history indemnify him? If he only knew of the unintended consequences of his theories, would he have burned his papers that formulated relativity? Even if he did destroy them and stopped working in physics, would someone else at some later point of time have thought up such a theory leading up to the weaponization of the atom anyway?

This question relates to the philosophy of determinism. The hard variety of determinism involves going back to the initial conditions of the universe which set off a causal unstoppable chain of events. If we are able to analyse everything right down to the subatomic level with some kind of super-computer, we will be able to work out all that will happen. There will be however a rather limited value in doing so since all of it will be inevitable anyway. According to hard determinism, Einstein, Oppenheimer, Drake, Adam and Eve are all just actors in a cosmic plot where they could not have done otherwise than they did due to the subatomic interactions prior to their actions leading them and us to where we currently are and determining what we will do next.

The soft variety of determinism is akin to Karl Marx’s economic determinism, where it is simply a matter of time when one economic system overtook the prior, regardless of who the actors are. Analogous to Marx’s economic determinism would be how, even if Einstein did not exist, someone else will simply have discovered relativity but somewhat later. According to Marx, societies in general pass deterministically through five different stages of societal development – primitive communal society, slave society, feudalism, capitalism and finally communism. While this has not come to past in most societies to date, a Marxist still believes that it is only a matter of time, despite Marx’s other failed predictions such as how the first proletariat revolution would happen in an advanced industrialised economy such as Great Britain. One may argue that many of his predictions did not pan out precisely because they served as a warning which then modified the course of actual history. We may even go so far as to claim this as an unintended consequences or more convolutedly argue that perhaps this was after all his intention. Marx’s writings do not borne out this suggestion since according to him, the capitalists are themselves alienated from their work and are quite unable to help themselves, causing the inevitable chain of events as predicted by him. To channel Friedrich Nietzsche, it will be like asking a bird of prey not to hunt.[8]

Josef Stalin, an adherent of Marxism, while predating the coining of the term unintended consequences explains the concept succinctly in his writing:



[W]hen improving one instrument of production or another […], men do not realise, do not understand or stop to reflect what social results these improvements will lead to, but only think of their everyday interests, of lightning their labour and of securing some direct and tangible advantage for themselves.

When, gradually and gropingly, certain members of primitive communal society passed from the use of stone tools to the use of iron tools, they, of course, did not know and did not stop to reflect what social results this innovation would lead to; they did not understand or realise that the change to metal tools meant a revolution in production, that it would in the long run lead to the slave system. They simply wanted to lighten their labour and secure an immediate and tangible advantage; their conscious activity was confined within the narrow bounds of this everyday personal interest.



Following this logic of people’s disinterest in long run outcomes and their fixation on short-term advantage, Stalin went on to use the concept of unintended consequences to explain how the advent of industrialisation would as an unintended consequence lead to the proletariat revolution as an unintended side effect of the massing of labour in cities and their exploitation, which caused the workers to develop a class consciousness.[9] Not all unintended consequences are bad. This unintended consequence of the rising up and seizing of power by the workers as predicted by Marx is a positive outcome of the suffering of the workers. It is simply a progression of history in its inevitable march, what he regards as the dialectical movement of historical materialism.

Another example of positive unintended consequences is the concept of the Invisible Hand in classical microeconomics. According to the theory, each person or entity as an economic agent simply has to pursue their own self-interest selfishly and it will result in a good though unintended consequence of an efficient market. The term is coined by Adam Smith, who in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, writes about a “proud and unfeeling landlord” who has large fields. The harvest from such vast lands is too much to be consumed by him alone. His workers enjoy a share of the produce of his lands through his employment of them, for example to upkeep the “palace” of their landlord.

This trickle-down effect is not due to the generosity or kindness of the possibly rapacious landlord but simply an unintended consequence which occurs out of the landlord’s pursuit of his own self-interest. He does need workers to till his fields and servants to maintain his home. Likewise the rich industrialist benefit thousands of people by providing them employment though his intent was to enrich himself through their labour. Smith elaborates:



They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species.”[10]
What are Intentions?

Sociologist Robert K. Merton is credited with the first explication of the term unintended consequences in 1936. The exact term he used is “The Unanticipated Consequence of Purposive Social Action” which is also the title of his article. Indeed his title captures the meaning of unintended consequences: outcomes of an intended or purposive action that are unanticipated. I shall further parse the two parts of the term ‘unintended consequences,’ examining what is meant by intention and what consequences are being referred to.

What can have intentions? While animals have intentions potentially leading to unintended consequences, such as a monkey putting its head into a cookie jar for a delicious snack only to get unintentionally stuck, the focus of this paper is on human intentions and actions. Some of the paper’s conclusions will apply to animals since human beings are after all animals.

What is an intention? An intention is what a subject consciously cognise as an aim when making, not just any action, but purposeful actions directed at an objective.[11] Merton suggests that the objective need not be clear-cut or explicit since our aims may be hazy. He also does not assume that the action has to be rational.

The object of the subject’s action is assumed to be passive or reactive to the action, though the subject’s anticipation of the object’s reaction may influence the subject’s choice of action. For instance, Jim anticipates that his wife, Cynthia, is happy to receive flowers. With the intention of making her happy, he brings flowers though unbeknownst to him, she hates flowers as gifts since she feels it is a waste of money. However, she recognises his good intention. Not wishing to upset him, she acts as if she is happy which leads to a continuous stream of flowers as gifts from Jim over the years even though she is suffering inside. There is a shared intentionality[12] such that the subject’s intention is conditioned on the intention of the object and vice versa. This certainly can be a source of unintended consequences since both parties have good intentions but it finally leads to their divorce when she tells him the truth.

Such recursive intentionality belongs to human beings. If the object was an inanimate object or plant, the intention would then be on the side of the human subject alone.[13] For instance, George has a plant. He intends to water the plant to keep it alive. However, the plant is a cactus and his frequent watering causes it instead to die. The intent was to keep the plant alive and the outcome was the opposite of the intention, the death of the plant. However, unintended consequences need not be opposite to the intent. They can be something completely unrelated. Continuing with the plant watering example, the plant one day becomes sentient due to all the water and love showered upon it and starts talking to George. This belongs to the class of unintended consequences that are not only unintended but also unforeseen.









Foresight






Foreseen

Unforeseen


Intention

Intended

Foreseen & Intended

Unforeseen & Intended


Unintended

Foreseen & Unintended

Unforeseen & Unintended




The death of the plant from overwatering belongs to the group of foreseen but unintended consequences. Every living thing dies and so George arguably would have foreseen the plant’s death. He is a novice at plant keeping and sufficiently self-aware to know that his efforts may be futile since he may care for the plant incorrectly. Given his inexperience, he modestly rated the chance of the plant’s survival at 50 per cent. Probabilities have a role to play in the foreseen but unintended consequence.

Another kind of foreseen but unintended consequence is when an object is misused, that is, it is used in a way that it is not designed for. For instance, a candlestick is used to hold a candle but it can and has been used as a murder weapon, at least in murder stories. The inventor of the candlestick probably did not invent it to be used as a murder weapon though he might have noticed that the heft of a brass candlestick might be enough to kill if swung violently, hence making such a consequence foreseen but unintended.

The foreseen and intended consequence is the ‘normal’ case of an action, where we make an action with an intention. For example, I kick a football with the intention of scoring a goal and I foresaw that I might be successful. We dealt with the death of the cactus from overwatering, a case of foreseen but unintended consequence. However, the unforeseen and unintended (UU) is the most interesting class of unintended consequences since we did not expect such an outcome, leading to surprise like when the cactus became sentient and spoke to George. Even the most imaginative person may not have been able to dream up such a scenario. This UU class is the most powerful class of unintended consequences since it cannot be planned for and hence its effects may be difficult if not impossible to counter.

To logically exhaust the matrix of combinations of foresight and intention, we have to examine the remaining combination of the unforeseen and intended. This combination is incoherent since to have an intention, one must have foreseen the intended outcome even if the intention is hazy (and even if the outcome finally was unintended). For example, James intended to get a reaction out of George even if he did not know what that reaction specifically would be. George gave him a punch, which was a type of reaction, hence meeting James’s expectation of a reaction though he did not know in advanced it was going to hurt.
What are Consequences?

Consequences are outcomes from actions taken at an earlier time. These outcomes occur at a later time.



Act ------------------ Consequences

Time: n ------------------ n + m



Some outcomes are intended – they correspond to the purpose of the action. For instance, Judith drew up architectural plans for a house, bought the land and gathered the materials, equipment and manpower with the aim of finally having a house to live in. Some outcomes are unintended. Upon completing the house, the land prices had escalated greatly and instead of living in it, Judith sold the house for a huge profit. While the outcome was not as planned, unplanned outcomes are not necessarily undesirable. Huge profits are also a positive outcome for Judith who had made the effort to build that house.

However, the outcome could have turned out to be negative. Say the area where the house is to be located is crime-ridden, and as a result of moving into this new completed house, Judith was murdered in it. The example uses extrinsic factors such as change in land prices and the crime situation that resulted in positive or negative outcomes but the factors could also be internal to the agent. Judith could have been too ambitious, taking on a financial commitment to build a house beyond her affordance, resulting in the negative outcome of her being unable to complete building her home. She could have been too careless, being aware of the crime situation in the neighbourhood but forgetting to lock her doors at night. But even if there was no change in land prices and she knew beforehand about the crime in the area and had been careful to lock the doors hence averting her potential murder, and she managed to move into her new house as planned, it can still be considered a good outcome since merely having things go according to plan is already desirable.

Sometimes, our actions lead to side effects which are part of the consequences though they are not directly caused by our actions. Side effects are most commonly associated with medicines, for instance paracetamol is taken to alleviate headaches but may have an unwanted side effect of abdominal pain. Continuing with Judith’s example, a positive side effect for her is that since she has a bigger home, she can keep a big dog that not only brightens up her otherwise lonely life, but also gives potential criminals second thoughts from breaking into her home.

The direct outcomes and side effects of actions in the example are labelled positive or negative. Who is making this judgement? It could be the agent of the actions, the subject Judith, or it could an external observer like myself who is attributing to her my assessment of what I think her judgement would be. Such attribution implies there are values at play in our evaluation of the outcomes. Judith viewed profits as something good while she would view her own murder as bad. As had been pointed out, when things go to plan, it is not a neutral but a positive outcome since they correspond to our intentions. Our intentions are what plans are directed towards, serving purposes which are our desired outcomes. Conversely, when things do not go according to plan, it is a negative outcome since the desired intentions are not fulfilled despite the costs and efforts that had gone into carrying out the plan.

What then are neutral outcomes? Neutral outcomes can be outcomes which are a matter of indifference or ignorance. For instance, Judith’s house-building involved digging up the ground and in doing so killing the worms there. Judith does not care much about worms though others may feel that worms too need protection. Her lack of concern with worms makes her indifferent to their deaths being one of the side effects of her house construction. On the other hand, she might be an animal-lover.[14] If she had known or thought how digging up the land to build her home might kill worms, she might have been pained. However, she was not aware of it since she did not do the digging herself but hired workers to do it. Whether she was indifferent or ignorant of the outcome for the worms, it is a neutral outcome to her.

Another important point about consequences is that they need not be a concrete outcome but could be a lack of outcome. For instance, Judith’s dog prevented potential crime. There was no crime committed but crime was averted due to her having a dog. This lack of or null outcome is a positive thing. Positive consequences can be about the aversion or lack of bad outcomes. At the building site of Judith’s future house, Flint almost fell into a pit but his sleeve got caught on an excavator preventing him from falling in. Observers may agree that Flint had a lucky break. However, what if Flint simply stayed at home that day because he had a cold? Did the cold that stopped him from going to work at the building site prevent his falling into the pit? 10 years later, Flint, now aged 40, had an accident on another building site. When he was young, he studied construction methods in school. If he had studied something else, for example linguistics, it would likely have kept him far from construction sites and hence he would not be having an accident on one when he was 40 years old. Is his study of construction in school what finally led to his accident at 40? Or is it his lack of interest in linguistics that caused it? Both instances of accidents are viewed as negative outcomes to be avoided if possible. On the other hand, if he did not go into construction, he would not have met Grant, whom he enjoyed a lifelong loving relationship with, which both Flint and Grant would view as a positive outcome. Suffice it to say that these consequences are hypothetical and belong to the metaphysics of the counterfactual (is what did not happen real?), which is not the aim of this analysis though it would contribute greatly to understanding the phenomenon of unintended consequences. The point is that a lack of consequence is sometimes the consequence.

An important dimension of the nature of consequences are who or what the affected parties or entities are, their differing intentions and the relative importance of the consequences to them. The subject with the intention and taking actions, Judith, clearly is involved. Others however are swept up in the wake of her action, such as Flint, who themselves possess their own agency and have their own intentions separate but related to Judith’s intentions. For instance, Flint’s primary intention of being involved with Judith’s house construction is to make money from his labour while the result of a built house is what he has to achieve to reach his primary intention. The housebuilding is a means to reach his ends of a salary but both the completed house and his salary are consequences. The salary is primary for him because if he had to work for free, he would not have participated in the project. For Judith, the completed house is her primary intention, since if she was not going to receive a built house, she would not be hiring and paying Flint. For both Judith and Flint, both the built house and Flint’s salary are consequences though they are of different importance for both parties.

Non-human objects such as the land, the bricks and the worms are also affected entities to Judith’s intention. The worms got killed as a consequence of the housebuilding and the bricks got laid into the walls of the house instead of sitting in a warehouse somewhere. However, there are other objects that also get affected by the ripples set off from Judith’s act. Grant meeting Flint is one such instance but also homebuyers facing rising prices in the area 20 years later. Judith’s new home was one among others which led to a gentrification of the area. More residents led to more shops and amenities springing up, leading to a greater desire for homes there, resulting in higher prices. These homebuyers were unrelated to Judith’s act in the sense that she did not identify them in her plans. They were not part of or pertinent to her plans though she might have an inkling about rising house prices. Hence, parties affected by consequences in this example are subjects (the primary one being Judith), objects (bricks, worms, Flint), and others non-related to the act but nonetheless affected (Grant and homebuyers 20 years later).

Consequences can be felt by individuals and groups, including entire societies, the world and future beings. The example of Judith’s house focused on consequences felt by individuals such as Judith, Grant and Flint, and groups such as homebuyers 20 years later. However, her home building and living in her house contributed to greenhouse emissions leading to climate change, which affects all living things in the world, including the yet to be born.
Why Do Unintended Consequences Arise?

Merton outlines five causes of unintended consequences:

1) Ignorance. While we are ignorant of the future since otherwise no consequence would be unintended, the ignorance Merton focuses on is ignorance in the present, which is to have inadequate existing knowledge such as the lack of predictability surrounding human behaviour though we may have statistical ranges of consequences. Citing Henri Poincare, Merton explains that past experience may be inadequate to predict outcomes since “small differences in initial conditions produce very great [differences] in the final phenomena.” Outcomes may hence appear fortuitous, “occasioned by the interplay of forces and circumstances […] so complex and numerous that prediction of them is […] beyond our reach.” Hence, inadequate existing knowledge may be due to how adequacy may simply be unachievable.

Nonetheless, we often have to act with confidence in the face of incomplete information, “not on the basis of scientific knowledge, but opinion and estimate.” Situations demanding immediate action may involve such incomplete information and hence may result in unexpected outcomes. Incomplete information may be caused by a scarcity of time and energy to devote to the anticipation of consequences.

2) Error. Errors can arise from “our appraisal of the present situation” leading to an incorrect “inference […] to the future objective situation, in our selection of a course of action [… and] its execution.” Past successful actions may not lead to desired future outcomes since “procedures which have been successful in certain circumstances need not be so under any and all conditions,” such as a “changing social environment.” In other words, we face the classic problem of induction.

Errors can also arise from having considered only some aspects of the situation due to “neglect (lack of systematic thoroughness in examining the situation) [or] pathological obsession where there is a determined refusal or inability to consider certain elements of the problem” due to “emotional involvements.”

3) Short-terminism. Merton talks about “the imperious immediacy of interest” where concern with near-term outcomes override longer-term consequences. Such immediate interests may be to meet psychological needs and basic cultural values. While our interest may demand “objective analysis,” our strong psychological concern with instant gratification may prevent us from making the “required calculations.”

4) Fundamentalism. If a basic value is felt as necessary, there may be “no consideration of further consequences.” Merton alludes to a dialectical movement where “activities oriented towards certain values release processes which so react as to change the very scale of values which precipitated them.” Actions based on such values tend to be focused on a specific value-area but its effects may have wider ramifications which then influence the value-system.

5) Predictions influence the situation changing the course of development. Merton cites how Marx’s prediction of the proletariat revolution influenced the process of societal development leading to collectivisation and the non-fulfilment of his prediction. Forecasts influence the course of events and renders its assumption of ceteris paribus in its analysis unobtainable and needs to be accounted for in social planning.

Ceteris paribus not holding is related to ignorance, error and predictions but in different ways. In any study of social and economic phenomenon, ceteris paribus or ‘all else being equal’ is a fundamental assumption. In a scientific experiment, only the independent variables are changed by the scientists so that they can observe corresponding changes in the dependent variables, in an attempt to establish a relationship between the independent and dependent variables. All other variables are controlled and kept constant. The social sciences attempt to do the same with models of human behaviour but this is difficult since we are not able to bring large numbers of people into a laboratory setting to isolate just the variables under study, leading to a grossly inadequate model which however still guides our understanding and intuitions of social effects given a human action. Once a multitude of factors interact and change in the same time frame, ceteris paribus goes out of the window, giving rise to ignorance that causes unintended consequences. Multiple factors themselves are a source of error as models and theories are unable to predict what happens when many factors change together, yet we continue to expect them to guide us.

The very act of prediction, possibly underwritten by our expectations based on social models and theory warps the outcome. For instance, if gold prices are expected by a highly reliable source such as the central banks to double in a month’s time, this expectation may cause other economic actors to quickly jump in, causing the price to rapidly rise in the next day or even hour. This front-running can happen across any market, be it gold, property or even tulips. Expectations of continually rising prices lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy where rising prices reinforce the expectation of further rising prices, causing even more traders to pile in, in the expectation that they would be able to sell it to the next “bigger fool.”[15] Finally, there are no further ‘fools’ to sell to and the price collapses. This phenomenon of a price bubble bursting is an example of an unintended but not quite unexpected consequence, since it has repeated many times over centuries up to the present. It is unintended since the bullish participants want to keep dancing while the music is still playing, while the naysayers, as individuals, are unable to make much market impact since the market is too big to be able to be moved by an individual though collectively, prices can move into bubble territory and just as suddenly deflate.

There are limits to our knowledge in two ways. First, we do not know what the future holds, even while we have expectations of it due to our understanding of social theory and induction from previous experiences. Secondly, our existing knowledge is also limited. We may fail to understand or correctly interpret the current situation. Our knowledge of others may be shaded by our psychological biases towards them. Parents when told of the bad behaviour or crimes of their child may react that it could not be so since they know their kids to be angels. They fail to objectively assess their children’s character because of their intimate relationship. Indeed, such intimate relationships which should provide us deep knowledge of our loved ones may be what blinds us to their faults, leading to unfulfilled expectations and disappointment from their unexpected behaviours. This may explain the high divorce rate with its accompanying refrain: ‘you have changed.’ The spouse’s character had not changed. They had always been insincere, dishonest, disagreeable etc but when one is caught up in the throes of love and romance, one may fail to recognise these unflattering traits.

Our ignorance may also arise from a lack of imagination. For instance, Jack is unable to recognise that his child, Jamie, identifies as non-binary. Non-binary gender identities as a concept are simply unknown to him. Being unable to even conceive or imagine such a possibility, he makes light of Jamie’s situation leading to their estrangement. However, an overactive imagination may also give rise to unintended consequences. Seeing dangers in every corner may lead to a total paralysis of the individual or being overprotective of one’s loved ones, resulting in the unintended consequences of crippling their lives. ‘Do not run, do not play with others in case they hurt you, do not …, do not …, do not …’ may induce such fear in a child that it leads to neurosis. Fortunately, most children ignore such an excess of caution in their quest for new experiences and adventure, for if they did not, their growth would have been stunted. They brave the odds, depending on their caretakers to cushion their fall when they take a tumble.

Low probability events are unlikely but they can and do happen. The chance of being killed in a plane crash is “for the average American […] about 1 in 11 million.”[16] Probability works by the law of large numbers. It takes an average based on the numbers of occurrences divided by a large sample size. However, it is quite possible that one happens to be either atypical, for instance, travelling a lot more than the average person, or simply be that one person out of the 11 million. When we get on a plane, we do not intend to die in it since we will otherwise not have boarded. Hence, if the plane starts plummeting down, it is both unintended and unexpected by us, at least when we first got on board, even if we are aware of such a possibility. It is not that we did not know that planes crash or failed to imagine it. We are aware but its low probabilities assure us. Hence, if a low probability event does happen, it is an unintended consequence.

We should not be misled that if human agents are rational, unintended consequences can be avoided. Unintended consequences are not exclusively a result of a failure of our rationality. Even the most accurate statistical analysis coupled with careful and rational assessment of the odds can lead to unintended consequences. The low probabilities are the very statistics we rationally depend on to give us confidence in boarding a plane. They are the cause of the lack of intention of dying in a plane crash since worse odds may have dissuaded us from taking the flight. Acting in a rational way can still lead to the unintended consequence of dying in a plane crash. Our rational belief in the low probability of a crash was what set up the conditions that led to us being in the crash.

Moreover, we have to function in a world described by statistics. Beyond immutable physical laws such as gravity and the inevitability of death, every other occurrence is a matter of statistical probability. Even staying in our homes forever will not protect us. The roof can collapse, we can fall down in the bathtub, we can have a gas leak. The aim of such an unforced quarantine at home is to prevent accidents but accidents also happen at home, in addition to other unintended consequences such as the members of that home driving one another up the wall and the social isolation which can cause severe psychological problems.

Being overly careful leads to unintended consequences. Martin Niemöller’s post-WW II poem First They Came illustrates perverse consequences:[17]



First they came for the Communists

And I did not speak out

Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me



‘Playing it safe’ by staying silent and inactive in the face of injustice led to the unintended consequence of being arrested finally since if everyone did the same, there finally is no one left to fight for the rights of others.

A lack of care or a callous attitude is also a source of unintended consequences. A person who did not pay attention or could not care less is ripe to experience unintended consequences simply because many consequences from one’s lack of care will then be unintended. Juliet does not take care of her personal hygiene and suffers food poisoning frequently. She did not intend to have these episodes. Her negligence towards cleanliness caused them though she did not intend them.



For want of a nail the shoe was lost.

For want of a shoe the horse was lost.

For want of a horse the rider was lost.

For want of a rider the battle was lost.

For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.

And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.



The anonymous poem[18] outlines the chain of effects that through a lack of care led to unintended consequences. It was not as if the owner of the horse which required the horseshoe nail wanted to lose the war and consequently their kingdom. A seemingly small action or in this case inaction due to a lack of care could, as the poem outlines, create massive unintended consequences. Caring too much about one’s immediate safety as in the Niemöller poem, not taking care of one’s personal hygiene or the horseshoe nail can be placed under negligent short-terminism, the third of Merton’s five causes of unintended consequences.

To be able to take care of long-term consequences, we must be able to make correct calculations of the future. However, as Merton points out in his second cause, we can make errors of induction. Previous unintended consequences might have taught us to avoid certain actions in similar situations but such avoidance might lead to novel unintended consequences. We may have become experts at periodic horseshoe nail inspections, having learnt our lesson from losing kingdoms from a lack of care towards nails but an excess of care on small details may then lead us to miss the big picture. In a kind of dialectical movement, we may then learn that we need both care for small and large details in a war. However, we might also have simply learned the wrong lesson. Perhaps the lesson is not about horseshoe nails but about how we should not fight wars in the first place.

Jeremy was sitting in the last carriage on the train. He chose it because it was the smoking carriage and he was having a cigarette when his train crashed into a train in front. His life was saved since he was in the rear but what is the lesson to be learnt here, that smoking saves lives? Or was the lesson that a seat in the last carriage is the safest until the next crash happens from the back? Not every unintended consequence reaps a lesson to be learnt and if we try too hard to learn one, we may learn the wrong one.

To be able to learn the right lessons, we need to link our actions to the consequences causally (the smoking carriage was at the rear end of the train and what saved Jeremy is not smoking but being at the rear). Our actions might be just one factor out of many that led to the unintended consequence (if the train driver was not at that vital moment lighting his cigar, he might have noticed the stop traffic signal). However, even if we are able to correctly understand the cause and the interplay of factors, we still face the problem of induction since no two situations are exactly the same (the next train crash might come from the rear). In addition, laws and norms might change (smoking is no longer allowed on trains) so we may not be able to apply previous lessons. New knowledge may emerge that change our behaviours. For instance, asbestos was a common material in roofing and insulation until it was discovered to cause cancer. This new knowledge gave rise to unintended consequences for the companies involved with asbestos products. Our limited insight into future possibilities is a critical cause of unintended consequences. There is a knowledge horizon which we cannot look beyond and hence are seemingly helpless against consequences arising from this unknowable. Who then can be held responsible?


Responsibility

Without mens rea or a guilty mind, without an intention to do harm, is one culpable? Asbestos was widely used in construction and the science then did not indicate that the material would cause harm. The providers of asbestos had proceeded in good faith. When new knowledge established the harmful effects of the material and was accepted by the industry and its experts, its usage was phased out. If there is an intention to cause harm or to continue peddling the product despite its harm being well established, for instance in the tobacco industry, it will seem just that the agent manufacturing and profiting from the product will have a moral responsibility to take action to remove the harmful products and compensate those harmed. Similarly, consumers also have to bear some responsibility to avoid using what is now a known harmful product.

However, in the case of unintended consequences, since there is no intention, is there then no one responsible? Arguably, that is the case. No one is responsible – it appears to be a case of bad luck if one is afflicted, for instance, with cancer from the asbestos in their home, for the generation of people who are living in homes with asbestos before new knowledge about its toxicity emerged. Nonetheless, to solely blame the asbestos producers may seem reasonable, since they had profited from selling the material even if they had halted sales when the knowledge emerged. However, did the government agencies in charge of approving construction materials, the public health authorities and academic institutions which house the scientific experts regarding the matter not have any responsibility? Should then the state be held responsible and have to compensate the victims? Should the state create a fund to cover unknown risks? Since the magnitude of compensation is unknown, might it have to make unplanned sizeable payouts from its past reserves since the economy after all had benefitted from the construction activity that involved the harmful asbestos?

If unintended consequences are unavoidable and inescapable, simply happening to agents in an unplanned and somewhat random way, is it simply a matter of luck? If so, does it imply there is hence no responsibility for bad unintended outcomes? However, if the outcomes were good, for instance a profitable asbestos industry prior to the new knowledge of its harm, why should those private companies be allowed to retain their profits but when outcomes turn sour, to socialise the costs?

Unintended consequences could after all be positive or negative. Whoever starts a company will have an intention of profitability. How the outcome could be positive but unintended is that the profits turned out to be far greater than the entrepreneur had expected. Conversely, while business failure is clearly a possibility for any entrepreneur, they certainly do not intend to fail, making this as a case of foreseeable but unintended consequence. Business failure can have devastating consequences for the entrepreneur, such as bankruptcy, a bad reputation or even suicide. However, such risks are seen as par for the course in conducting a business, and governments are not standing by to bail out failing companies though they do benefit from taxing profitable firms.

Hence while the agents involved may not be morally culpable for harm resulting from their activities, they might bear the unintended consequences, though that liability may be limited in the case of a limited liability company (LLC). Governments and other bodies unrelated to the agents, such as charitable organisations, may also make efforts to compensate, help or support victims. The victims may also bear the unintended consequences, for instance in suffering death or other harms resulting from the use of a product, with no compensation from anyone. In practice, how the blame is apportioned depends on how the representatives argue before the court and consequences may be shared between the parties. Responsibility is taken in the sense that someone bears the consequences though culpability may be justifiably denied by the bearer of the unintended consequences.

Unintended consequences pose a difficulty for agents since they arise in an unexpected and unplanned way. If the punishment for unintended consequences is too harsh, it can act as a barrier to the conduct of activity. For instance, Armin owns a bookshop. He brought in a large stock of a title that was later banned by the government. However, he had already paid the publisher who would not take back the books since that was the terms of their deal and the government was not willing to compensate him either. He ended up bankrupt. Because the bookshop was not a limited liability company, his personal assets were seized to cover the debt resulting from the payment for the books. He ended up poorer than before he started the bookshop. One could imagine him cursing the day he decided to go into business. Such cases of personal liability are in fact a cause for the creation of a limited liability business structure to protect the personal assets of the entrepreneur.[19] After all, Armin’s action of selling books is unrelated to his personal asset of his house, since that house was not related to the activities of the bookshop, for example, if he had bought the house before he started the bookshop. If carrying out a small business activity can expose one to the loss of everything one personally owned, then such activities would be much less, to the detriment of society since such business activities may be desired by members of that society.

There is a need for adventure on the part of individuals who wish to exercise their freedom to expand the limits of their experience. Society also needs such people to propel its development, to take risks to find new ways of doing things and create new products and markets. However, unintended consequences can arise. Hence, agents need to be shielded from such consequences so that they are not discouraged from venturing. Protections include legal structures such as LLCs, and private and public insurance schemes to pool risks across a collective, and social structures to provide a security net for those who fail.

Risk pooling in insurance depend on the different risk exposures of those who sign up for it. For instance, in compulsory healthcare insurance, premiums are paid into a pool which is then used to pay out when medical expenses occur. The older demographic will have more claims than the younger groups since on average, older people have more healthcare needs than younger ones. Hence they may be required to pay comparatively higher premiums. However, even within the same demographic group, different policyholders incur expenses at different times, with some remaining healthy and hence incurring no expenses and requiring no payouts. It spreads the burden of impending expenses across its many policyholders, making it possible to pay out when needed by individual policyholders. It alleviates a liquidity crisis for the individual since it collects regular small premiums from them over the policy period while payouts are less frequent though they may be a large sum. Individuals who do not make any claims or less frequent and smaller ones are in effect paying for the ones making more frequent and larger claims. However, what they get is the comfort of knowing that should they have to make a claim, they can depend on the insurance to be able to pay out. As for social structures, it can be a state funded structure of social welfare financed by tax collections or it can be a private yet social structure, for instance a social structure of families taking care of their own family members, such as a rich person underwriting a new business of her child’s.

These concepts, schemes and structures help alleviate the suffering resulting from unintended consequences. In turn, because the individuals enjoying such benefits feel secure, they can then embark on more ambitious (risky) projects that when successful enrich the society also. Conversely, societies without such schemes and structures suffer the opposite effect. If one cannot afford for things to go wrong, one has to be very cautious and hence no big venture can be judiciously undertaken. Inequality will increase since only the rich can afford to take business risks, in turn reaping the profits of their ventures while being able to afford their losses. A balance needs to be struck since if the benefits are overly generous relative to the premiums, it can lead to reckless risk taking while undermining the sustainability of the insurance or welfare scheme, while if the benefits are too meagre, risk-taking may be stymied.

As individual agents, we take actions that may lead to unintended consequences. The impact of these unintended consequences can be limited to the self only, for example if I unintendedly cut my finger while sorting through some papers. However, as individuals living among others, even what seems limited to oneself can have effects on others, especially those close to oneself, such as one’s family or loved ones. For instance, my bleeding finger caused me to be unable to prepare lunch for my children. There might also be wider effects that affect others in society.

Such effects on others are part of the human condition of living in a society. For instance, Lily has been living with a chronic medical condition that has brought her grave suffering. She wishes to be euthanised. While her death from euthanasia most immediately affects herself, it also has an affect on her loved ones, some of whom may support her decision while some may feel that there still remains hope for a cure so long as Lily remains alive and hence she should not be euthanised. It may also affect the morale of the society that permits or disallows such a way of dying.

Is good intention in conducting an action a sufficient reason to excuse agents for unintended consequences that may arise? In the past and still in some countries today, beating children to discipline them is acceptable, possibly even desirable, so as to develop good character in them. While it may be carried out with the best of intentions by the parents or at school, what if it leads to negative unintended consequences such as psychological trauma for the child? Say a child, Richard, due to this trauma grows up to become a mass murderer. Are the parents to blame or is it the society since the parents were just doing what was considered a norm or what was even laudatory in that society? Are good intentions enough to shield them from blame and its related responsibility?

Further, who is this responsibility owed to? In the case of Richard, we might agree that there is a responsibility owed to the victims he murdered and their families. How about their friends who may suffer pain from being separated in such a way from the victims? How about Richard’s own friends who may suffer guilt for not being able to support him through his psychological pain, which might then have led to the murders? How about Richard himself, whose life might have taken a different turn had he not been subject to such beatings from his parents in the name of discipline? How about people completely unrelated to the murders but may experience fear knowing that there are mass murderers in the world?

How about future generations who did not come into existence since their would-be parents were murdered by Richard? Arguably, responsibility is owed to each of them though it is impossible to quantify what penance will be sufficient to account for anything other than direct losses, such as to the victims. For instance, one victim, Esther, was employed as a manager. A loss of expected income can be calculated as the amount of compensation to be paid out to Esther’s family. But what if it is argued that had she continued living, she could have given birth to a Nobel Prize winner who would have devised a solution to save the planet? That may seem far-fetched and is clearly speculative. What is less doubtful is to assume that each of Esther’s potential children would in turn have children and so on, using well-established statistical averages. Esther’s murder led to this entire line of people not coming into existence. Even if Richard was given the death penalty for murdering Esther, would his one life be sufficient to compensate for the multitudes of Esther’s descendants that were ‘lost’? Conversely, using the same logic, we could argue that Richard in fact saved them, since they would have been born into a world of suffering. Should we then reward him?

Clearly, whatever punishment is meted out would have an arbitrariness to it. Richard was given the death penalty by hanging. For Esther’s family, his death by hanging will not bring back Esther or compensate them for loss earnings from Esther. Its function is more societal. Hanging Richard prevents him from murdering more people and is a deterrence to those contemplating becoming murderers. What Esther’s family got is a sense that ‘justice had been served’ though that may be cold consolation for the loss of their loved one.
How to Live with Unintended Consequences

Having explicated the nature of unintended consequences, what remains is what are we going to do about them. Becoming paralysed from fear of unintended consequences is not an adequate response since that can lead to plenty of unintended negative consequences, such as becoming overly anxious, developing mental illness from the anxiety or not daring to try anything new. Besides, it is futile since whatever you do or not do, unintended consequences can arise.

We have to live with unintended consequences. We need to recognise the absurdity of how our best intentions can turn out badly but yet have the courage to continue forging ahead anyway. Can we be like Albert Camus’s Sisyphus and imagine, despite the drudgery and absurdity of life, that we can be happy anyway? Many of our decisions have to be made under conditions of uncertainty. This uncertainty can be from an ignorance of existing knowledge as Merton has pointed out in the first of his causes of unintended consequences. However, even if we have expert knowledge on the direct and specific field the decision seems to be about, there remains many other aspects that are unaccounted for.

We cannot account for it all but even if we could, there remains the unknowable future. But decide we must and we do so, sometimes in an arbitrary way since it hardly seems to matter and we do not have the information or the time and energy to go find that information. Sometimes the decision is important and we invest the time and energy but things turn out in an unintended way anyway. Sometimes we fall back on our value system to help guide us.[20] Sometimes our imagination runs away from what is at hand, pitching us slippery slope arguments which could possibly result but is unlikely to. Sometimes we throw caution to the wind and it turns out well or badly. Nonetheless, we have to keep moving, to keep living.

It is humbling to know that our plans may turn out badly no matter how well-conceived they are, no matter how careful we are in their execution. With an awareness of unintended consequences, we can acknowledge that there is a limit to planning, that we do not and cannot know everything. Avoiding pride and hubris shields us against the psychological suffering when things turn out in unexpected ways. We should continue to plan nonetheless since a failure to plan will give rise to expected and foreseeable failures which could have been avoided with a proper plan. Planning removes avoidable elements of uncertainty which if not avoided only serves to further complicate matters. However, we should not be dogmatic about our plans. We need to be flexible, to modify our plans as the situation develops. Such course corrections are needed since once the situation makes clear that the plan is no longer adequate, negative outcomes from not correcting will then not be caused by unintended consequences but a negligence since the consequences have become foreseeable. Hence important plans should not be allowed to run on autopilot but instead be monitored and adapted as events unfold.

To plan well, we need to plan with a holistic view in so far as our existing knowledge allows, considering angles where unwanted side-effects may arise. We need to put in place buffers to cushion against what may go wrong. Engineers overdesign structures, making bridges stronger than what even the expected maximum load would require by a factor of several times. This means more structural members and materials are used in their construction, costing more and taking longer to build. They learnt this lesson on safety factors through past situations where what was unplanned nonetheless happened. They learnt this lesson from past engineering failures paid for in human lives and ruined reputations.

Testing may be necessary, to surface what may otherwise be missed. Designers have blind spots. For instance, when building a train station, the architect may have conscientiously ensured the tracks and varying train sizes are accounted for, taking care to have spacious waiting halls and an adequate number of lifts, staircases and escalators leading to the platforms. Despite his greatest effort, he may still miss important details, such as having toilets in the station which he only discovered when a soft launch of the station was on-going. This is not a failure. This is why tests such as soft launches are needed. A failure will be to allow the train station to become fully operational without toilets.

All this speaks of an attitude of caution on the part of planners, designers and engineers. Consulting with direct stakeholders has become a norm but such consultations may need to be extended to those on the margins or who may be indirectly affected. For instance, if we plan to build an apartment block on a piece of land currently occupied by squatters, we will work with the key stakeholders to decide the configurations of the various apartments and building in what customers want in their future homes such as electrical circuitry and plumbing. However, we should also consider the squatterss who will be displaced, heritage and environmental factors such as whether structures of historical importance need to be preserved or relocated, or how we are going to responsibly deal with the plant and animal life that will be affected. Since the plants and animals cannot speak for themselves, we may have to work with groups representing these interests.

To know what to consider and who to consult requires experience but also imagination and openness. Previously, the squatters may be unceremoniously thrown out and having little negotiation power, it may go largely unnoticed but it takes an open and caring attitude to realise that this group had been neglected and then to have the sense of duty to consider them in the plans and provide for their needs.

Imagination is also required to think of what could possibly go wrong. A useful framework that is in practice is to consider probability vs impact of potential events.









Probability






High

Low


Impact

High

High probability,

high impact

Low probability,

high impact


Low

High probability,

low impact

Low probability,

low impact




High probability high impact events such as accidents taking place in our train station example require the walkways to be wide enough for emergency paramedics to access the injured with their equipment and possibly their vehicles. A high probability but low impact event such as a cold soda being spilled may require no prior action at all. It can be responded to when it happens. This likewise goes for low probability, low impact events.

For low probability but high impact events, mitigation is needed, for instance water sprinklers to put out seldom occurring but catastrophic fires. However, if it cannot be mitigated, compensation may be necessary. For instance, Ben was waiting with a hot coffee on the platform. He was alarmed by the horn of the train pulling into the station and spilled his drink on the person next to him. While the probability of this happening was low, the victim was badly scalded. Given how infrequent something like that happens, the train station may be unable to take measures against such incidents and if deemed responsible can compensate on a case-by-case basis.

Whatever the case may be, we need to act responsibly and in a reasonable way when the unintended consequences arise, even if we are not culpable. By we, all parties are meant. The cold soda was spilled unintentionally by the passenger so it hardly makes sense for the stationmaster to seek to penalise her. Likewise, Ben’s hot coffee was spilled unintentionally on the victim so it makes little sense for the victim to sue Ben or the train company just like it would make little sense for Ben to run away. Instead, Ben could behave reasonably and provide assistance such as calling for first aid or keeping the victim calm while awaiting help. Even bystanders can help.

Bruno Latour, in his essay Love Your Monsters, writes about the unintended consequences technology can have: “Just as we confuse Frankenstein for the monster, we also misunderstand Dr. Frankenstein’s real sin. For Dr. Frankenstein’s crime was not that he invented a creature through some combination of hubris and high technology, but rather that he abandoned the creature to itself.”[21] Even if we did not intentionally created the consequence, we can and should act responsibly. Ben can render aid and apologise without accepting liability. What would be irresponsible, though not criminal, would be for Ben to run away, leaving the victim alone to fend for himself. We need to care for the monsters of our unintended consequences that we create.

Lastly, since the uncertainty of life along with unintended consequences seem inevitable, we might as well embrace it. Unintended consequences are not by its nature necessarily negative. We can learn from previous unintended consequences. Uncertain outcomes may even provide a way out of difficult circumstances. In the folktale Nasreddin and the Sultan’s Horse, the tyrannous Sultan wanted to behead Mullah Nasreddin because he was offended by Nasreddin’s joke. Nasreddin was known to be a skilled teacher, and he offered that if the Sultan delayed his sentence by a year, he would teach the Sultan’s horse to sing. While the Sultan did not believe that was possible, he nonetheless gave Nasreddin the year.

That evening, Nasreddin's friends were allowed to visit him in prison, and found him in unexpectedly good spirits. "How can you be so happy?" they asked. "Do you really believe that you can teach the Sultan's horse to sing?" "Of course not," replied Nasreddin, "but I now have a year which I did not have yesterday; and much can happen in that time. The Sultan may come to repent of his anger and release me. He may die in battle or of illness […] He may be overthrown […] Or the horse may die, in which case the Sultan will be obliged to release me. Finally […] even if none of those things come to pass, perhaps the horse can sing."[22]
Conclusion

Our actions and plans sometimes lead to unintended consequences. This phenomenon is widespread but yet remains mysterious because we seem helpless to combat it given its nature of appearing ex post. Some may attribute it simply to chance or “the inscrutable will of God or Providence or Fate.”[23] By studying what is meant by intention and consequences, and the causes of unintended consequences, this paper aims to improve our understanding of the concept. As they are unintended, we may not be culpable since we do not possess mens rea though this does not mean that we can then escape taking responsibility by acting responsibly. People have a need for adventure which can lead to unintended consequences. Society needs such people to propel its development. As a society, we can and have created structures and schemes to protect our members from unintended consequences. As a general strategy on an individual and societal level, we need to remain open to modifying our plans as the situation evolves, adopt a holistic planning approach, act responsibly and reasonably when unintended consequences arise, and embrace the uncertainty of life. While we will not eliminate unintended consequences through these strategies, we can ameliorate their effects and adequately respond to them.






[1] https://time.com/4008544/american-oil-well-history/


[2]https://news.sky.com/story/climate-change-could-make-south-downs-ripe-for-wine-making-boom-study-finds-12337825


[3] Genesis 3:5, 2:17, NIV


[4] The Concept of Anxiety, chp. 1, Søren Kierkegaard.


[5] cf. https://philosophicalbachelor.blogspot.com/2021/08/counterfactual-conditionals-regrets.html


[6] https://www.wired.co.uk/article/manhattan-project-robert-oppenheimer


[7] https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/einstein/peace-and-war/the-manhattan-project


[8] Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche


[9] Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism (Calcutta: Mass Publications, 1975), 36–37.


[10] The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759, Adam Smith, Part IV, Chapter 1. My italics.


[11] Merton differentiates between conduct which is action involving motive and choice, and behaviour such as reflexes, which are reactions that are involuntary. If the subject has no choice but to carry out the action or to refrain, then the action or lack thereof is involuntary, even if it comes with an intention of a more trivial sort. For example, our breathing under normal circumstances is reflexive and involuntary, with the intention of keeping our blood oxygenated. We cannot do otherwise, since we can only consciously hold our breath briefly before automatically giving in to breathing again. To keep our focus, we will only examine more explicitly purposive actions though even reflexive and involuntary actions can lead to unintended consequences and the analysis does not change.


[12] Michael Tomasello’s terminology.


[13] I leave aside the case of animals since animals may have intentions such as a dog wanting to make its mistress happy.


[14] Worms are animals, not insects. https://australian.museum/learn/species-identification/ask-an-expert/are-worms-insects-or-animals/


[15] Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Charles P. Kindlebrger and Robert Z. Aliber


[16] https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/planecrash/risky.html


[17] https://www.hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor-martin-niemoller/


[18] https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk/poem/for-want-of-a-nail/


[19] https://www.delawareinc.com/llc/history-of-delaware-llc/


[20] cf. Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean Paul Sartre.


[21] Bruno Latour, “Love Your Monsters,” Breakthrough Journal, 2011, 8.


[22] https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sufism/Nasrudin#Nasreddin_and_the_Sultan's_Horse


[23] Merton, 894.