Q&A: An Unintended Act (and Rabbi Shimon Shkop's Explanation)
An Unintended Act (and Rabbi Shimon Shkop's Explanation)
Question
Does the Rabbi have an explanation for Rabbi Shimon's view permitting an unintended act?
I saw what Rabbi Shimon Shkop writes, and as I understood him, he argues that if the person does not intend the prohibition, then the action is not called by the name of the prohibited act (for example, it is not an act of plowing but moving a bench). I can understand why one would not label the act by the name of the prohibition, but this seems to me to be only a semantic matter, and I do not see a substantive distinction that would justify the leniency.
Answer
The semantics are not what matter here. There is a line of reasoning here that says that a person's act is the act he intended to do. This is also an assumption found in the analytic philosophy of action. Of course, one can argue with that reasoning (and Rabbi Yehuda in fact does), but it is certainly not absurd.