End and the Means

[dagda]

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?

[leo-rcc]

I do not think that the end justifies the means. It would depend very much what the end result would be before I would do something with disagreeable means.

[Sam]

I have to agree, The ends can not be said to justify the means ... It opens up a grey area where a laudible goal can cover up atrocities in it's creation and in my opinion that would deflate the meaning of the goal.

Regards

Sam

[LukeMC]

It reallllllllllllly depends. I think the findings of Milgram's experiments justified the emotional turmoil some of the participants suffered as the means. But then you get something like the atomic bombs which ended WWII. The ending of world war two was certainly great, but I can't find it in myself to say this justifies such mass slaughter. And when you're doing something awful and promising it will be justified by the end... I don't like that

This is a tough topic, I hope more people start pitching in

[lukec]

Yeah- it absolutely depends on the situation. Even then, though, it's iffy, and totally subjective. For example, if you had to kill a million people to achieve world peace, that would be to some a very acceptable cost. To others, however, the killing of one is the same as the killing of any number, and unacceptable. Who chooses where to draw the line?

It's of course interesting to think that different people would have polar views on what exactly is morally acceptable. This makes it difficult to know exactly which "means" are justified and which are not. For myself, it's simple- if I have a moral problem with the means used to achieve an end, then the end does not justify them. But as for how to apply that to a societal scale, I have no idea.

[bozo]

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?

Quote examples of ends justifying means.

[Tiberius]

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.

[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?

[Tiberius]

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.

[Eilonnwy]

That's can be a very broad open-ended statement. I would say I'm opposed to it philosophically. I think a persons moral's and ethics, essentially their values, should not be compromised, otherwise are they really values?. Could you possible create a scenario where I might change that opinion? Possible, but not likely. And then again would that scenario be plausible. Like Adrian's train scenario doesn't seem very plausible and I don't like debating hypothetical scenarios that will likely never happen.

Torture is a huge controversy in the US. The Bush administration claimed it needed to torture to protect America. We now know it's all bullshit, but they believe the ends justified the means. But it doesn't. One guy, whose name escapes me, is beyond prosecution because we tortured him. He was supposed to be a hijacker on the flight 93 on 911. He will never be put to trial now. There are a whole myriad of reasons why torture is wrong, the best is that information from torture is never reliable, is never timely. Time and again talking, negotiating, etc... is what provides true information.