When writers say that Abelard proposed a ‘morality of intention’, they sometimes have in mind a meaning quite different from that which has just been discussed. They take ‘intention’ to refer, not just to the object of ethical judgement, but also to the basis of judgement. Moralities of intention are, on this interpretation, ones where the agent's own evaluation of his moral choice is preferred to any external criterion as the basis for moral judgement. Such moralities are – to use another description which has sometimes been applied to Abelard's ethics – subjective rather than objective. According to such a moral position, I do wrong if and only if I do what I believe I should not do or I do not do what I believe I should do. Abelard's theory of sin (which is formulated in the context of a supreme God) would be subjective, therefore, if (for instance) it held that someone sins if and only if, in performing an action or failing to perform one, he is not doing what he believes he should do for God.

Abelard's views about action and intention, as presented in the last chapter, do not themselves give any reason to think that Abelard's theory of sin was subjective in this sense. But Abelard adds to them another idea, which does seem to favour this interpretation. This is his view that sin (which is an act of willing or consent) consists in ‘contempt’ (contemptus) of God.