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Comment by thu2111 | Hacker News Reader

Surely something being misconduct or not is independent of someone's intentions? All kinds of people do bad things with good intentions.

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Yes, we've got to make sure we're talking about the same thing here. In general, we don't morally censure a person who does bad things with good intentions. For example, in criminal law there is usually a requirement of ill-intent, called "mens rea"[1], which means the actor is aware that what they're doing is wrong.

If a person does something wrong but is not aware that what they did is wrong, the general reaction is not to "accuse them of misconduct", but rather to explain to them what it is about their action that's wrong, after which (if they in fact have good intent) they will no longer do that action.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea

Mens rea is subtly different, I think. It is intended to allow a defense that you really didn't want to break the law and did so unintentionally. It isn't quite about the self-perceived goodness of your intentions. That is, stating "I knew I was breaking the law but my actions were good and I didn't realise people would think I'd done something bad, therefore I don't have mens rea" won't work. Knowledge that it was illegal was sufficient. And mens rea is also not a defense that allows legal ignorance.

It's also worth noting that quite a lot of broad crimes are strict liability these days, especially in America. For example money laundering is a strict liability crime, along with more obvious ones like speeding.

Misconduct though is not normally a criminal law term anyway. More like a code of conduct for an organisation.

Not really. I'm a lawyer so I have a decent grasp of this stuff. Mens rea is closely tied to intent, not really to whether it had anything to do with intending to break a law (ignorance of the law is generally not a defense). Think of the difference between someone who commits premeditated murder, someone who commits manslaughter through gross negligence (e.g., a drunk driver), and someone who by complete accident is responsible for another's death (someone runs out in front of your car). In each case a person's actions directly cause another person's death, however we attach different levels of culpability to each. We're getting a little bit far afield from original issue, here, though. Anyway . . .

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