 Foot starts her investigation of the connection between the virtues and the will by examining the role of intentions in determining someone’s character. We evaluate someone’s moral quality, she thinks, primarily by examining his intentions (1978 [VV 4]). Yet, good intentions are not sufficient to demonstrate that someone is virtuous; in the case of charity or benevolence, one can show lack of charity despite our good intentions, in failing to bring about the intended good. For example, one can be ignorant of something one should have known, as famously illustrated by Foot with her example of failing to learn basic first aid. Someone who is genuinely benevolent will take the trouble to find out about basic first aid, and because such knowledge is so easily attained and so generally useful to others, it shows a lack of charity to fail to attain such knowledge. Also, Foot points out that failures of performance can count against someone’s claim to possess virtue despite good intentions when one’s heart is not in the action. Virtues are therefore also ‘dispositions of the heart’ according to Foot, meaning that we must take the trouble to cultivate the desire to act well.  Conversely, virtue par excellence occurs in one who is “prompt and resourceful” in doing good (Ibid.). A virtuous agent will take pleasure in doing good things for others, and so for Foot, the will includes our intentions as well as our ‘innermost desires’.