Well, I admit I’m not entirely clear about this. I tried, repeatedly, to reach Elizabeth Anscombe’s “Intention” and really couldn’t make heads or tails out of it.
Here’s a little parable that contrasts free act with intent.
Let us say I grew an apple tree on my land so that there are apples on it.
A storm came and destroyed some of the apples.
A passerby took some apples so that her child would not starve.
A revolutionary took some apples in order to give them to all the children.
A thief took some apples and ate them.
Here we see, in succession, no human actor, a human actor who is not free, a human actor who is free and has a good intent, and a human actor who is free and has a selfish intent. The good that is destroyed: a few apples, — is the same in all cases. The natural right to the apples is mine in all cases, since I took nothing from others to grow my tree. But the right is violated when a free actor chooses to take my good, that is in the two last cases. The intent of the revolutionary and the intent of the thief are different, but the objective observed result is the same: the apple is mine; they did not have to take my apple; they took it knowing it is mine. That is natural law. The moral judgment will make a further distinction of intent and may exonerate the revolutionary based on the nobility of intent; but that would be mercy as opposed to natural law.