Deck: The Charles Dickens Tarot
Card: The Hermit IX Philip Pirrip
Answer: Intentions. Not that intentions are more important than outcomes per se - in fact, Great Expectations is in a sense an autopsy of intentions - but intentions are more important when it comes to simple questions of morality.
Great Expectations is a novel that shines a spotlight on the great divide between intention and action. We cannot know the intentions of others, not being privy to their interior world; we can only assess their outward actions. And, as Pip demonstrates, we often assess outward actions - and thus intentions by extension - incorrectly. Indeed, Pip shows that we often cannot know our own interior world with any accuracy, and so incorrectly assess our own intentions and by extension act in ways immoral. The Hermit card of The Charles Dickens Tarot gives a simple, unrefutable answer to the given, somewhat simple question, but it illuminates much deeper and more interesting questions about how to evaluate actions, how to assess the intentions of others and of ourselves, and ultimately asks: with what do we judge judging?
Pip is a character wrought with an indeterminate and indiscriminate guilt. Whatever it's origin, it causes Pip to believe in things that aren't true but he wishes were, to discredit what is obvious, and to be blind to his own motivations. His evaluations, from the start then, are off; he is himself upside-down. As a result, his intentions are misguided and consequently, his actions are in error. Christ suggested thoughts and intentions themselves can be sinful - everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. As with Pip's guilt, this begs the question: where do thoughts come from? Morally speaking, how can we be accountable for the intentions of our intentions as it were if they spring up within us beyond our control? Similarly, if we intend one thing, but because our reasoning is wrong and the data we use to reason with is wrong and in carrying out our intentions mishaps occur, how can so much confusion and error be deemed "intentional" at all and thereby immoral?
In short, it can't, exactly, but we do it anyway, just as we presume another's intentions even though we can never really know what they may be. But if instead of judging which is more important morally, and perhaps instead of judging altogether, we might do well to simply look at the outcome of our actions. Arguably, we can't control our thoughts and the erroneousness of our intentions, but we can however by and large control our actions - to greatest effect, as Socrates pointed out, by not acting on our thoughts. In order to do this, one must be aware of oneself - hold up the lantern to one's own thinking, feeling, soul, as the Hermit card itself signifies. That is, observe rather than act. By so doing - or, ironically, by so not doing - a curious and unexpected transformation takes place: we come to see the data more for what it is than for what we would make it be, our intentions become less self-deluding and our "reasoning" becomes more intuitive reflection and less tendentious argument, and the thoughts which sprung up and were uncontrollable will be changed. In this way, perhaps paradoxically, there is a moral imperative to consider, own, and incorporate the implications of the outcomes of our actions rather than reside in an abstract cul-de-sac of moral righteousness which an emphasis on good intentions can become - as it often does for oneself, which Pip elucidates.
.