End and the Means

[dagda]

Rather than use a hypothetical senario, we will use a real one. The nuclear bombing of Japan at the end of the 2nd world war killed thousands of innocent people. This could be said as morraly wrong.
However, the alternitive was far worse. A land invasion of Japan would have turned out like Okinawa (spelt wrong?) where thousands of Japanese died rather than surrender. This carnage could be mulitplied 100 times for the mainland.

We have the situation that it was either thousands of deaths or millions. In the long run, millions of lives were saved at the expense of thousands. This does not make the deaths any better or morraly right but it does justify the act. In a democracy everyone is equal hence the rights of the many must be taken over the rights of the few.

However, that being said there is certianly a grey area.

[Edwardo Piet]

Do you think the end justifies the means? Personaly, I do-however, as no one knows the end result as they implement the means, it can get tricky. What do you think?

It depends. Certainly I do not believe that the ends always justify the means.

Sometimes they do though - like with surgery. Cutting someone open would do no good if the ends (saving someone's life for example) didn't justify it.

And just doing it for the sake of it would not be advised I think! To say the least!

Evf

[Tiberius]

How was he a hijacker on flight 93 when there were no survivors???

And also, the whole thing about ethics is making up intricate situations that might never happen, because our morals are supposed to work with any situation. The fact that different situations produce different results in people show that morality is more complex than we ever imagined. There are some people who would save the person on the tracks, there are some who would save the train, and there are some who would not be able to make an active decision and would simply let (for lack of a better word) "fate" take it's course.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Do you think the end justifies the means? Personaly, I do-however, as no one knows the end result as they implement the means, it can get tricky. What do you think?

I do but in specifying a goal it is important to define the cost ... IOW gettng rid of religion is a laudable goal but if doing so involves the extermination of most of the population of the planet then probably not

Kyu

[Eilonnwy]

How was he a hijacker on flight 93 when there were no survivors???

Sorry I wasn't clear. I meant potential Hijacker. He was actually prevented by security to get into the US and be the 20th Hijacker. I found his name, it's Mohamed Al-Khatani and because he was tortured he'll probably never be prosecuted.

---

Rather than use a hypothetical senario, we will use a real one. The nuclear bombing of Japan at the end of the 2nd world war killed thousands of innocent people. This could be said as morraly wrong.
However, the alternitive was far worse. A land invasion of Japan would have turned out like Okinawa (spelt wrong?) where thousands of Japanese died rather than surrender. This carnage could be mulitplied 100 times for the mainland.

We have the situation that it was either thousands of deaths or millions. In the long run, millions of lives were saved at the expense of thousands. This does not make the deaths any better or morraly right but it does justify the act. In a democracy everyone is equal hence the rights of the many must be taken over the rights of the few.

However, that being said there is certianly a grey area.

This is one of those situations where it's really hard for me to voice what I think. The best way I can verbalize it is philisophically I don't agree with war and I don't agree with killing. I always, ideally, support actions that don't involve killing or violence. So on principal, I don't support the nuclear attacks on Japan. However realistically, while not condoning the actions, I accept them as what had to happen based on the knowledge and capabilities they had at that time.

Why would I taker such a wishy-washy kind of stance? Because I believe saying that such an action is morally right makes it okay in the future. It sets a precedent. But I think the precedent that should be set is to always avoid those situations by advancing our intellect, our science, and our peacemaking abilities. We should always avoid these rock and hard place situations, so I would never consider what happened with Japan in WWII morally right. It's never okay to kill innocents, and if we make it okay then we as a society are morally bankrupt.

When I think of ends justifying a means though, I think in general to use that statement is to say the means are morally bankrupt otherwise the phrase would never need to be use. And I'm not so sure anything that is morally bankrupt is "justified".

I hope I'm clear, philosophy is always tough for me because I have a hard to verbalizing my thoughts.

[bozo]

The ends only justify the means if the means had multiple paths, and the chosen path ended with the greater of the ends. For example, a train is hurtling towards certain doom, and the only way of preventing disaster is to send it onto another set of tracks. However, there is someone caught on the tracks and nobody can get to them in time (nor can they free themselves).

So you have the choice of sacrificing the one to save the many, or sacrificing the many to save the one. In this circumstance I could positively say that I would choose to divert the train, killing the person on the tracks. I probably wouldn't like doing it, but the ends justify the means.

Adrian, what if the one strapped to the track was the most prominent atheist there has ever been?

I don't value any particular life as greater than another, so for me the problem wouldn't be apparent. Of course, when you get into things like "what if the person on the track knew the cure for cancer" then it gets harder, because suddenly the ends are shifted. You have to factor in whether you should sacrifice this man and hope that another cure is discovered, or whether the greater amount of life on the train is better than all the lives that could be saved with the cure.

I see no reason why I would save a prominent atheist over a train full of people though, as in the long run they have nothing to offer that can even remotely compare to the saving of life.

Adrian, apologies I didn't phrase my question properly ( I'd had a few drinks and it was late ).
What if the one strapped to the track was the " goody " and all the people on the train were real " baddies "? Put your own interpretation on good and bad.
My view is that the answer to the question is how you view the end result. Some results will justify the means, others won't, depending on your own view.

[Eilonnwy]

Heh, Bozo, this is why I hate hypotheticals. That's highly improbably and silly, so in my opinion not worht arguing what you *might* do in a situation that you can almost gaurantee will *never* happen where the tiniest variable makes all the difference.

In my opinion you can never know for sure what you would do in a situation you've never been tested in.

[Sam]

The ends only justify the means if the means had multiple paths, and the chosen path ended with the greater of the ends. For example, a train is hurtling towards certain doom, and the only way of preventing disaster is to send it onto another set of tracks. However, there is someone caught on the tracks and nobody can get to them in time (nor can they free themselves).

So you have the choice of sacrificing the one to save the many, or sacrificing the many to save the one. In this circumstance I could positively say that I would choose to divert the train, killing the person on the tracks. I probably wouldn't like doing it, but the ends justify the means.

I'm sure I read something along these lines recently that argued this same point ... forgive I can't remember where I read it, but in essence it went along the lines of ...

If you where on a train hurtling towards a brick wall with 500 passengers on board and the only option was to divert on to parralel track with some one tied to them (i.e. Adrains Scenario) would you do it?

To which the answer usually came ... Yes

So then, If a patient in hospital is dying of a some disease which is completely uncurable and will result in death and their are 10 others in the same hospital with curable illnesses requiring transplants (for arguments sake, say they can all be sourced in the dying man) urgently, there are no other donors and no other hopes ... you would surely then by the same logic kill the dying man and harvest his organs?

A good question I thought,

Regards

Sam

[LukeMC]

Rather than use a hypothetical senario, we will use a real one. The nuclear bombing of Japan at the end of the 2nd world war killed thousands of innocent people. This could be said as morraly wrong.
However, the alternitive was far worse. A land invasion of Japan would have turned out like Okinawa (spelt wrong?) where thousands of Japanese died rather than surrender. This carnage could be mulitplied 100 times for the mainland.

We have the situation that it was either thousands of deaths or millions. In the long run, millions of lives were saved at the expense of thousands. This does not make the deaths any better or morraly right but it does justify the act. In a democracy everyone is equal hence the rights of the many must be taken over the rights of the few.

However, that being said there is certianly a grey area.

Even if the first bomb was necessary, did they really need to drop a second one? I don't think this is a question of what is morally right; it is a question of what is less morally wrong. I was also under the impression that the "millions of deaths" was an exaggeration and tool of propoganda to justify the bomb, while other estimates were in the low thousands. Obviously this could be due to poor sources, but there seems to be a lot of citation within them:
http://www.doublestandards.org/blum5.html
http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/educato...p-bomb.htm

[bozo]

Rather than use a hypothetical senario, we will use a real one. The nuclear bombing of Japan at the end of the 2nd world war killed thousands of innocent people. This could be said as morraly wrong.
However, the alternitive was far worse. A land invasion of Japan would have turned out like Okinawa (spelt wrong?) where thousands of Japanese died rather than surrender. This carnage could be mulitplied 100 times for the mainland.

We have the situation that it was either thousands of deaths or millions. In the long run, millions of lives were saved at the expense of thousands. This does not make the deaths any better or morraly right but it does justify the act. In a democracy everyone is equal hence the rights of the many must be taken over the rights of the few.

However, that being said there is certianly a grey area.

It was I who invited you to quote examples and you have quoted this one.
You appear to be suggesting that the motive on the part of the Americans was to save more Japanese. It wasn't, it was to save the lives of more Americans in the event of a prolonged land conflict.
I can understand the tactical nature of the decision without necessarilly supporting it. And the dropping of the second bomb is extremely hard to defend.
And as regards democracy, western style, do you REALLY believe we are all equal????

---

Heh, Bozo, this is why I hate hypotheticals. That's highly improbably and silly, so in my opinion not worht arguing what you *might* do in a situation that you can almost gaurantee will *never* happen where the tiniest variable makes all the difference.
In my opinion you can never know for sure what you would do in a situation you've never been tested in.

Heh, E, it wasn't my hypothetical, it was Adrian's ( I just added a factor to be considered ).
To repeat what I said to Adrian, ends can justify means, according to your own tastes.
So, for a real event:-
I had a lively exchange with Leo over the French Revolution, which I admire and he doesn't. As regards ends and means, I defend the Terror ( it was needed to defend the revolution ), whereas Leo condemns it for his own reasons.