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Question

I don't know if my question is philosophy, law, history, ethics or none of it, but I imagine a scenario where an obviously evil and criminal act with the intent of malice has the result of utility and good.

For example, imagine if Charlie is going to the cinema and on his way to the cinema I stop him and I rob him of his money or even violence towards so that he cannot complete his visit to the cinema and maybe needs to go to the hospital or the police station instead. On the occasion the cinema where Charlie was going to is attacked by a bomb or terrorists and everybody at the cinema dies. It becomes clear that Charlie would have been dead if I had not committed the crime against him.

Or similarly if I with malicious intent make somebody miss an airplane where everybody dies.

Was there such a situation in real history and how would that be thought of, considering that the criminal only had evil intention but in fact he saved the life of the victim. Would that even change a verdict or the ethical conclusion what was the right thing to do?

Answer 1

It's on topic here

You are asking about the legal implications of a given set of facts - that's what we do.

With a few minor tweaks, you could be asking about the philosophical implications - that's what Philosophy does.

Answer 2

We don't do ethical questions here, that's what Philosophy SE is for (it might even be a FAQ). We can deal with the legal implications.

Answer 3

I don't know if my question is philosophy, law, history, ethics

Many questions about ethics are on topic for Law SE. That is because ethics is very often part of, and/or inseparable from, legislation and other sources of law. This is palpable in the examples that follow. Sometimes ethics is even mandated by the law.

Iberiabank v. Broussard, 907 F.3d 826, 840 (2018) points out that "Louisiana courts permit LUTPA claims based on breaches of ethical standards even if there are parallel remedies for similar conduct" (emphasis added, citations and quotation marks omitted).

Ethics is supposed to be one criterion for rulings on equitable grounds. As an example, Matter of Mobile Steel Co., 563 F.2d 692, 699 (1977) states that bankruptcy courts "possess the power 'to prevent the consummation of a course of conduct by [a] claimant which . . . would be fraudulent or otherwise inequitable' by subordinating his claims to the ethically superior claims asserted by other creditors" (emphasis added, quotation marks in original, citations omitted).

MCL 15.486 provides that the Regulatory Boards and Commissions Ethics Act "is intended to supplement existing ethics law, and if there is a conflict, the following laws prevail" (citing statutes).

MCL 124.754(9) reads that "[a]n authority shall adopt a code of ethics".

Various rules and comments in the California Rules of Professional Conduct make several, explicit references to the California Code of Judicial Ethics and "an applicable code of judicial ethics".

The court in Florida Bar v. Went For It, Inc., 515 U.S. 618, 645 (1995) alleges that "[t]he objective of the profession is to ensure that 'the ethical standards of lawyers are linked to the service and protection of clients'" (citations omitted, quotation marks in original).

the criminal only had evil intention but in fact he saved the life of the victim. Would that even change a verdict or the ethical conclusion what was the right thing to do?

No. It is important to distinguish between matters of ethics and random coincidences where a criminal's act unexpectedly prevented the victim from suffering greater harm. The criminal cannot reasonably posit that considerations of ethics should be a mitigating factor or lead to his exoneration for harm he actually caused.