A Trip into Philosophy: Doing Good Things for the Wrong Reason

Alright, first of all let me say that I am no doctor of philosophy; I simply have a few questions. While I was driving home from work, I was thinking about a few things. So my question is: "If someone does a good thing, such as donating to charity, but for the wrong reason, say a tax write-off, is it really a good thing? Does this change the action into a more gray area of morality? Do the motives behind an action determine whether it is deemed a morally good or wrong thing?

My first example is this: Mary's not rather liked in her community, so she decides to plan a major fundraising event for a local charity. Mary likes the thought of helping others, but mostly thinks about the praise and attention she'll receive from other members of her community. This hope is what drives her to carry out the event. So is Mary really doing a "good" thing or are these just positive effects of her less morally acceptable goal? So is Mary a person to be admired and praised? What if Bill Gates, the most generous man in the world, was only giving so that he could be called "The Most Generous Man in the World"? Would we really think of him in the same way?

Many people have their opinion about the current war in Iraq. My personal opinion is that by dethroning Saddam Hussein we did a good thing. He was a horrible dictator who killed many innocent people, a fact that I've never heard disputed. However, I believe our leader's motives were greatly skewed. Though none of us know the exact motives of the invasion of Iraq, whether it be for oil or George Bush's personal vendetta, most theories are not in a positive light. So what is the actual nature of our actions? Does our prevention of more numerous lives being lost overshadow the fact that we were never there to actually save people? The rest of the world's opinion of the United States' seems to point to the conclusion that our motives do affect the morality of our actions.

I've been thinking about this for some time now (tonight was not the first time that this has crossed my mind), but I still have not been able to come to a conclusion. What do you think about this? Do you think our motives affect the morality of our actions? I would love to hear other people's opinions on this matter, so please feel free to comment.

Thanks,

Warren