There are different views in the academic circles on the question of whether the perpetrator has a criminal motive and criminal purpose in an indirect intentional crime, with a few scholars holding a positive view and a common proposition rejecting it.
In our view, there is no criminal purpose and no criminal motive in indirect intentional crimes, but the perpetrator may have other criminal purposes. For example, if a villager in a mountainous area has a grudge against B and wants to kill B, there is a small wooden bridge in front of B's house, and under the bridge is a mountain stream dozens of meters deep. One night, A learns that B has left home to run errands, that is, he has destroyed the small bridge and made a horizontal board into a trapboard, intending to cause B to fall down a mountain stream and die when he returns home. At that time, A also thought that maybe someone would visit B's house before B returned home, or that the rest of B's family might go out at night, so they would cross the bridge and fall down the mountain stream, but because they were eager to kill B and did not want to give up this opportunity, they let this harmful result happen. Later, just before B returned home, another villager C had an urgent matter to find B, stepped on the trap, and fell to his death. B thus survived death. In this case, A attempted direct intentional homicide against B and indirect intentional homicide against C, and this indirect intentional crime itself does not have a criminal purpose, but the perpetrator has another criminal purpose, that is, the hope and pursuit of the result of killing B. In indirect intentional crimes, the perpetrator does not have the criminal purpose of the harmful result that he has allowed to occur, that is, he does not have a mental attitude of hope and pursuit of such an outcome. This is determined by the difference between the indirect and deliberate desire to let go and the hope for the purpose of the crime.
As mentioned above, the purpose of the crime is the psychological attitude of the perpetrator that he hopes to achieve a certain harmful result by committing a harmful act, which is a subjective manifestation of the harmful result, and it must have a clear direction, that is, a definite goal, and there must be an active pursuit of the act in order to achieve this set goal; Indirect intentional crimes, on the other hand, are subjectively characterized by a laissez-faire mentality that may lead to harmful outcomes, and the possibility of harmful outcomes being allowed to occur. This means that the perpetrator subjectively recognizes that the harmful result may or may not occur, that is, his or her behavior may have two outcomes, and this kind of laissez-faire psychological attitude towards more than two outcomes is resigned. Without the clear purpose of the act required for the purpose of the crime, and under the control of such a laissez-faire mentality, the perpetrator will not actively pursue the occurrence of harmful results through action. Therefore, it should be said that the perpetrator of an indirect intentional crime has the criminal purpose of pursuing the occurrence of a certain harmful result in the hope that a certain harmful result will occur.
Indirect intentional crimes do not have a motive per se. Because the motive of the crime and the purpose of the crime are closely related to each other, the perpetrator forms the motive for the crime based on a certain need, and the purpose of the crime is determined under the guidance and impetus of the motive for the crime.