Do the Ends Justify the Means? Let me know what you think. Try to give examples. As of now I say that the ends never justify the means, but thats just me.
the ends justify the mean, because it doesnt matter how you reach your conclusion just wut it is. Hence the american revolution we had to kill english soldiers which in its self is bad but if it leads to the greatest civilzation in history i believe it is forgivable.
Ya but do the ends justify the means when you don’t intend for the end to happen, or when you expect a different outcome? In other words, is it right to do something evil if the outcome was overall good?
u need more practice in cross-ex, and the answer is no
We don’t get the ends we want if don’t concentrate on the means. In fact, they’re the same thing.
SuperStrongSteve (SSS),
your question is a utilitarian (John S. Mill) one. Which states that it doesn’t matter on the ‘motive’ of the action, all that matters is the consequences of the action (end). Ie. If I accidentally trip someone and they fall and hurt themselves - I have done something wrong because the action created pain that outweighs the pleasure. I find this view by itself to be naive and unthorough.
There is much to be said about Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative in reference to ‘motive’. For Kant, if you intend to do good, but the situation turns bad; you have done nothing wrong. Ie. If I accidentally trip someone and they fall and hurt themselves - I have done nothing wrong because I intended to do good, regardless of the consequences. Due to the nature of my example, it appears that there is more to Kant’s idea than the utilitarian one; so for the sake of equal representation I will give another example. President of the United States (during WW2), Theodore Roosevelt put through the Manhattan Project, his intent being that he wants to defend his country. Defending one’s own country is seen as good. Yet they dropped two A-bomb’s on Japan killing ten’s of millions of people within seconds. The nature of the A-bomb makes it impossible for it to be directed only at military targets. Dropping an A-bomb assumes you are going to kill innocent people. In rhetrospect, his intent was good, so he has done good according to Kant, but the pain caused by the dropping of the A-bomb outweighs the good that it produced (if it can be seen that it produced any good). So he did wrong according to Utilitarian Calculus (weighing the good and the bad)
So my answer to SSS is that there are SOME cases where the ends do justify the means, but we still lack a single theory of right and wrong that encompasses all situations, in all times, for all people.
Not meaning to go off on a tangent, but the concept of right and wrong exists only as a conceptual creation by human beings. In nature there is no right and wrong. Something to ponder about…
What’s your take?
thats exactly what i was thinking. and if right and wrong do in fact exist, then who or what determines what is right and what is wrong? the fact is, people see things differently. this makes it impossible to have a definite right and wrong, even for the most horrible of deeds. for example, the actions of the KKK (i dont support them im just using it as an example.) do you think that they wouldve gone out and terrorized and killed people if they didnt think they were doing something right? now, it is just assumed that they are wrong, a belief that many agree with. however, just because a majority says it is so that doesnt make it so.
we as humans have a lot to learn about condemning others and saying that we know what it right and wrong. i dont think that even if everyone on earth agreed on something that it would be right. do you agree?
No, not really. I agree with Magius that ‘right and wrong’ are human concepts but does that mean we should drop their use altogether? Most people implicitly use them when describing other people (they just hate it when it is applied to themselves) even when they decry their use in general. The KKK, as you point out, think they’re right and they are trying to show that they are right to new recruits for example. If we think they are wrong, we’d better start making some arguments to show that we are right.
Otherwise, we give up the whole game, we forfeit and I don’t want to do that.
I think there has to be some form of right and wrong because if we had absolutely no concept of right and wrong we would have anarchy. As a society we believe that such things as murder are wrong, but on the other hand murder can sometimes be justified (ex. self-defense). So there is such a thing as right and wrong, but it all depends on your point-of-view.
good, evil, snoopy, bad; these are just big words. I prefer to orgy instead.
sorry if someone already mentioned this but; the end cannot justify the means because then the ends become means in themselves.
Yes, yes. Ends become means and means become ends depending on the perspective.
The ends can’t justify by the means, because no one can know how anything will end. When anything is began it must be taken in it’s own and not be depent on the end result.
Yep. Ah, this is great. I was planning a long post here and everybody is saying what I wanted to say. Thanks.
Brad stated in response to TheHairyGuy:
Brad, I went through the posts, maybe I am missing something but no has suggested that right and wrong should be dropped altogether. I think you are missing the point here, we are just focusing on different possibilities of right and wrong being misconstrude, twisted, misunderstood, etc. Morality’ genesis came from the first villages and hence the gathering of our primitive ancestors. Without morality we wouldn’t have moved much further from those days because we needed some agreed upon rules so that we could prosper together as a community in close proximity; which needs organizations and a common concesus on what is right and wrong. Morality is needed, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t analyse it, criticise it, and more importantly change it for the better as we go along (which is happening, but not as much as we would hope). So that’s what we are doing here, analysing and criticising morality.
Silver stated:
You and Mauve together, are you just playing Devil’s Advocate or something for fun? It is a great quality to be able to break things down, take them to their logical limits, and to even see an outcome that for most isn’t apparent right away. But it is the same ability that can clowd your mind and miss a very simple point. Read the posts, look, if I have a goal of attaining $1 million and I become a hitman on November 21st, 2002. By June 7th, 2004 I achieve the mark of $1 million in my bank account - than I have achieved my END!!! My means of attaining that end was being a Hitman. So the question is, does the end justify the means? Which you are suppose to assume it to be a MORAL question. The end does not become the means, in the context of which it is meant here throughout the above posts (did you read them?). So in answering the question we have to way the moral value (if speaking in a general context) of having $1 million and than weighing it against the pain and agony I caused as a hitman to achieve that money. According to society, in this situation, the end does not justify the means. Although, using the same situation, if we were to look at it not in the general context, but of the personal himself (in this case me - and no I am not actually a hitman) than it is quite possible that we could get the opposite answer. I (hitman) may not care a spec of sand for people, any people, and may actually find it appealing to outsmart, track, premeditate, stock, and stop others hearts from beating (yes unfortunately there are actually people like this out there when you look outside your window - it’s a miracle we have made it this far).
Mauve stated:
Refer to the above response to silver. You can have an end. You and silver are being very picky and apparently haven’t read the previous posts to get an idea of the context in which the statement is being used.
What’s your take?
Oh, I don’t know.
T said:
That sounds like a dropping of use.
The Hairy Guy said:
If you accept that humans judge ‘right and wrong’, that they are human concepts, what could this possibly mean? That we’ll change our minds later? Sure, that’s a possibility but of little use when confronting the KKK. I see no discussion of morality here, only the belief that we could be wrong. True, but maybe people would like to take it a little further?
A million dollars, to use your example, is not an end in itself, it is a means to something else. Not obtaining it through appropriate means may very well lead not being able to use it. So, what’s the point of being a hitman?
The American Revolution was used as an example, but contrast it with the Rape of Nanking and you’ll see a huge difference in means in order to achieve ends.
The dropping of the atomic bombs is justified, not in terms of civilian life lost, but in terms of military lives saved. The argument, or so it goes, is that more people would have been killed if we hadn’t dropped the bombs. I, reluctantly, see a lot of truth in this argument.
It seems to me that many are not taking your point seriously enough. To simply point out that what we think is right, we may decide later to be wrong is always a risk that we take, but it’s this risk that forces us, not to simply contemplate an abstraction, but to discuss concrete moral decisions on a continuing basis. There is no final judge, the jury is always out, and all decisions made may be reversed on appeal.
Ends are means because there is no end (Of course, if we all die, that would be an end, but then the whole question drops out, doesn’t it?). Means are ends because in each and every mean there is a decision to be made on its consequences, for those consequences will in turn influence any further end.
See how that works?
To all of you who keep saying that the ends is just another form of a means. Well of course it is, but that is not what the question asks. Do the ends justify the means; the Means is the Cause and the Ends is the intended Effect. It is a closed scenario, cause and intended effect. Per the question we are not to analyze anthing more than that, so if the ends are also a means it doesn’t matter. You can only judge one scenario at a time.
This also implies that the answer to the question cannot be generalized. In some cases we will find the ends to justify the means and others we will not, therefore we can only apply the question as it stands in relation to a specific scenario.
However, even in individual scenarios, how do we make judgement? We would need a standard by which to make judgement. As Magius stated, morality is a human conception. Therefore, I would suggest morality as a poor standard because of it’s bias. Everyone has there own conception of morality and they are all different.
We must use some universal principle as a standard. A mathematical analysis of the positives and the negatives might seem appropriate, hence the principle of utility or hedonistic calculus. Using the principle of utility we should apply it universally rather than from our own perspective, else the judgement will be biased. (i.e. Was the means justifiable for me and the effects it had on me?) If we weigh the positives and negatives in a universal perspective, we find a more accurate conclusion. (i.e. Was the means justifiable universally per the negative and positive effects it had on the entire population?)
Per the example used previously:
The Means: Dropping a bomb and killing millions of people.
The End: To end the war.
Biased Perspective: (Americans)
Negative: Feel bad for innocent people that died.
Positive: American lives are saved and risk of future invasion diminished.
Conclusion: Ends justify the means.
Biased Perspective: (Japanese)
Negative: Many innocent lives are lost and attempt at winning the war is destroyed.
Positive: None.
Conclusion: Ends do not justify the means.
Universal Perspective: (The entire Population)
Negative: A large number of the innocent human population lose their lives.
Positive: An even larger population of the world’s innocent population are saved.
Conclusion: Again, the ends justify the means.
Which defense is more logical? Universal or biased? Also, the end might might justify the means in this particular scenario, but other scenarios might prove differently. Take Hitler’s anihilation of 6 million Jews, the haulocaust. From a Nazi perspective we would suggest that the ends would justify the means. For them, it was a justified act b/c they received the benefits and among the Nazi population their were more positive effects than negative. With a universal perspective, we come to a different conclusion.
So anyways, I would say that the ends justifies the means in some situations but not in others and judgement depends on your perspective. We can only truly measure justification by applying the principle of utility universally.
We also must remember, that it is much easier to pass judgement in retrospect. We can’t always tell whether an action we take will be justified or not b/c we can’t predict all of the action’s effects. Well, there you go. Those are my thoughts on the subject.
----- Many thanks to Skeptic and Magius for helping to shed light on this tough nut. I especially liked the part about a common consensus and “universal perspectivism”.
----- I don’t think the proper way lies with Kant’s categorical imperative, nor with consequentialist (which is the way i lean) doctrines such as utilitarianism. The truth of the matter is that no one rule in ethics can cover every possible scenario. Especially with conundrums as vexing as, “do the ends ever justify the means”, one needs every tool in the toolbox from many different viewpoints and areas of philosophy.
----- Skeptic brings up a good point. If one’s perspective is universal enough, The proper means come about. Murder is wrong, but if you were able to shoot Hitler and prevent the slaughter of 6,000,000 jews would you have done it? If you say yes, then you have to be very sure that shooting Hitler will in fact prevent the holocaust. If you say no, and you had the opportunity to kill Hitler, knowing that 6,000,000 jews would die, then perhaps you would have been an accessory to the holocaust. We frequently don’t know in enough detail all of the motives and consequences of actions (ours or others). Numerous sciences (like decision theory, psychology) are helping to unravel these dilemmas, but at the same time the speed of information has increased and our world is more interconnected than before, nevertheless, i am in agreement with skeptic that sometimes the end does justify the means.
What I see above is persons either say yes or no. But, what if the issue is really not black and white? What if sometimes the ends justify the means and sometimes they do not?
First let me say this about doing ‘ethics’ from the getgo. There is no truth in ethics that is not a truth against the backdrop of the ethical system itself. When someone says it is wrong to steal, or the ends do not justify the means, these claims can only hold weight against the system that justifies them…so you ask ‘under what theory of morality?’ and you save yourself a lot of quibbling.
As far as coming to terms with which ethical theory is the correct one, that is a waste of time. There are no correct or incorrect ethical theoies, only more and less reasonable ones (reason in the logical sense…not in the sense of what you ought and ought not do). When it is fleshed out between persons arguing over an ethical theory, and both are equally reasonable, then it comes down to values…what the person as an individual values. If a person really values individual freedom…then sometimes the ends will justify the means and sometimes they will not, according to this value. After all the intellectual games are said and done, values are a matter of psychology. There are only two ways to win an ethics argument…either persuade your opponent to accept your values…and then via reason demonstrate that your theory is more in accordance with those values than your opponent’s, or via brute force (i.e., regardless of what you think in your mind, you act according to what I think is right or I burn you at the stake). So this whole thread is really a back and forth argument going nowhere. A productive argument would be one in which a particular value is put on the table and then those who agree with that value argue about which ethical theory it is more reasonable to accept in order for that value to be realized. Those who disagree with the value either show that it is incompatible with other values the person holds (and is less willing to let go of) or pursuades the person, for whatever reasons (other values mostly) to accept their values.
Trey
No doubt there is something to the kind of closed scenario Sceptic suggests in a common sensical way. In 1971, it might have seemed like a good idea to break into Watergate. In 1972, you certainly might have felt justified. By 1975, however, doesn’t that justification look rather silly?
The Universalist perspective concerning WWII is misleading. The end was to win the war, not simply to end it. Ending the war quickly was secondary to the primary end of winning. Without seeing that, there is no difference between dropping a bomb on Hiroshima and giving the Japanese the bomb and the Enola Gray and letting them drop the bomb on Los Angeles. The idea and the reason two were dropped, and not simply one, was not to give them a sign, but to show that the Americans would continue to drop these bombs on Japanese targets until there was an absolute surrender (No negotiated surrender, remember?). Truman’s point and I think he meant it was that the Japanese faced extinction unless they surrendered. No doubt the emperor believed it.
A universalist perspective is a contradiction just as much as a closed scenario is impossible. Now, perhaps, I misunderstand the question, but I see ‘the ends justifying the means’ as another way of saying, “I don’t care how you get here, just get here by two tomorrow.” Okay, so I shoot a driver in the head, grab the car, run over two babies, and have every cop and trooper on my tail as I arrive at two. Is this really what the speaker meant?
As many have pointed out, an ethical decision means nothing unless against an ethical backdrop, but we can go further and say that any action, any statement means nothing unless it is placed in a background. But that background also always changes.
No such thing as a closed scenario, no such thing as a universalist perspective. Ends are means, means are ends.
But, I think Sceptic is right in the sense that means can be justified to other people who share similar world views, by pointing to the ends within certain limits. This is a common sense approach and it works. I had to run over your foot the other day because I had to get this burn victim to the hospital. You understand, don’t you? The trick here is whether or not superstrongsteve meant justification in an objective sense (justified regardless of what others think) or justification to a particular audience.
The way the original post is worded I’m inclined to think the former, but I could be wrong. Though he didn’t quite put it like this, Sceptic seems to read it as the latter.
Trey,
Reason and brute force are the only forms of persuasion? Ever heard of sentimentality? Appealing to emotions are usually more persuasive than appealing to reason.