Weekly Post.

Sorry it's late.  I lost track of what day it was.

1.http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/2010/01/11/newark-kiss/

This article discusses the morality regarding intent vs. actual effect.  Mr. Jiang breached airport security to give his girlfriend a kiss before she boarded the airplane.  He ducked under a rope designating a certain area off limits.  There are three possible punishments for Mr. Jiang: a 500 dollar fine for "defiant trespassing," a 1,000,000 dollar fine to help cover all the trouble he caused, or a prison sentence for intent to destroy a plane.

2. 

P1: A person should be punished for what they intend to do

P2: Jiang intended to either give his girlfriend a kiss or blow up a plane.

C: Jiang should be punished for what he intended to do. (Was it terrorism or a display of love?)

Deductive valid sound

3.  So that leaves us with the question: what did Mr. Jiang intend to do?  I personally believe that he only intended to give his girlfriend one last kiss and not blow up the plane, but regardless of intention, he caused a tremendous hassle for everyone at the airport and wasted huge amounts of resources.  I do not believe that ignorance is a valid excuse.  There is no valid reason I can think of for him to break the law just to kiss his girlfriend.  I think that Mr. Jiang should be punished for what happened.  Even though he may have not intended to cause trouble, he did.  An obvious parallel springs to mind: drunk driving.  A drunk driver does not intend to cause an accident, but when he does, he suffers very severe repercussions.  I believe that Mr. Jiang should be fined very severely but not sent to prison.