Does the end ever justify the means?

[Catholic_Lady]

It depends. If the means is an inherently evil act, no. If the act is bad only depending on the circumstances, yes.

[Edwardo Piet]

No.

The end:  World peace
The means: Universal genocide

QED

That is a particularly contrived example using an arbitrarily narrow view of “end”.

I'm pretty sure he was joking about the Q.E.D. lol.

[Edwardo Piet]

What are the other options for justifying means, besides ends?

The theory that it's the ends that matter is called consequentailism. Or in other words, it's the consequences that matter. In this sense the so called 'means' would also be an end and the only time the means doesn't justify the end is when that specific means (that specific consequence) is more negative than the end (the consequence) that that means (consequence) fails to justify.

I agree extremely strongly with this:

Everyone knows—or thinks he knows—that consequentialism fails to capture much of what we value. This is true almost by definition, because, as Ryan observes, “serious competing theories of value and morality exist.”

But if the categorical imperative (one of Kant’s foundational contributions to deontology, or rule-based ethics) reliably made everyone miserable, no one would defend it as an ethical principle. Similarly, if virtues such as generosity, wisdom, and honesty caused nothing but pain and chaos, no sane person could consider them good. In my view, deontologists and virtue ethicists smuggle the good consequences of their ethics into the conversation from the start.

Source:

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/clar...-landscape

My position is "Forget all this means/ends lark.... it's the consequences that matter. Regardless of if that's the final consequence or the earlier consequences".

For example, in the example CD gives where the final consequence is world peace but the means is universal genocide... the reason why universal genocide isn't worth world peace is because the immediate consequences of universal genocide are so bad that they're not worth going through to reach the final consequence of world peace.

[WinterHold]

Some ends are so stinky; so their means are stinky like them.
It gets pretty simple: take personal glory. That is one stinky goal. The correct thing would be "I want personal glory ONLY if others didn't suffer because of me".

That we call "a goal surrounded by constraints". But if you're at that level already; the means you choose would be always cut in half by the power of constraints.

So ends justifying the means; is a big no no for me. No; nothing justifies shit. Poop stinks no matter what. And a person who likes to go the shitty way, will get a permanent stain marking him like a freak forever and ever.

[Court Jester]

I've had some overlook and recon missions while in the Marines that didn't roll out as intended. Some times the ends absolutely justifies the means.