Travis Bickle's Conviction In Taxi Driver

In the film Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle, a middle aged man with no proclaimed direction in life in the beginning of the film. He soon enough, through his convictions about the "scum of the city," a love lost, and perhaps mental instability as a result of the Vietnam war, finds meaning in his life and carries it out through controversial actions. According to Merriam-Webster judging is defined as: "to form an opinion about (something or someone) after careful thought." Whether it be taking a girl out on a first date to a porno movie, or attempting to assassinate a senator, Travis Bickle should be judged by his intentions, rather than the consequences of his actions.
When Travis falls for Betsy, the relationship ends up derailing itself on the

If we judge Travis according to his intentions, we can determine that he was completely in the wrong to do such a thing. On the other hand though, the assassination was a failed attempt. If we judge him on the consequences of his actions, did he really do anything wrong? The consequences of his actions did not leading to anything bad in this scenario, no. This is an issue, so what is the use of judging an action? You could say that the use in it is to say whether or not that action was a good idea with what ever information is available at the time. So for example: If I give Joe a dollar for lunch at school, and later a man invades his classroom with the intention of killing everyone in possession of money, was it a mistake? If Joe 's sister Jane steals the dollar, saving Joe from the currency hating invader, should we praise her? In this particular case, I caused harm, and Jane saved her brother 's life. But to say that my action was wrong because it happened to have a negative outcome this one time, and that Jane 's was right because it happened to have a good outcome this one time, does not seem to sit well. In both scenarios with Jane and Travis, these are 2 ill intentioned decisions that ended up not having negative consequences, should Travis not be punished for attempting such a egregious act? And what if the next time they act on those bad intentions, something bad does