Does the end justify the means? An old classic.

Great Debates
21

No it doesn’t. It just means that if you torture a child to stop a war, what if the war doesn’t stop? Then all you’ve done is tortured a child. If you shoot a guy in the face to get the money to pay for Grandma’s heart surgery, what if Grandma dies before you get her the money?

If something isn’t ethical to do in and of itself, it isn’t ethical to do, because the future is unknowable. Every action has to be justified today, not tomorrow, because tomorrow never comes–when it does, it’s today. There are no ends, because life doesn’t stop with a “And they lived happily ever after”. It goes on until you die.

22

Is it ethical to steal a car? What if you need the car to get your child to the hospital and save her life?

What if she dies anyway? Does that reduce the act to mere car theft, and therefore assign it the same ethical status?

23

As Samuel Johnson said, “I refute it thus!” I own a shotgun, and that is how I would answer a murderer. Neither yes, nor no, but ‘mu.’ Or rather ‘bang.’ A third option is always available.

24

It is impossible to ensure future goals. All one can control are one’s actions, which are committed in hope of influencing the end result of the future. What you think may happen, may not. Possibly even will not. But you still have done what you have done. And thus, you must accept and live with the consequences. Steal the car. Know that in stealing it, you have inconvenienced someone, and you may well go to jail. With luck, you will save the girl, but all ends must be considered, when your means is chosen. The desired ends do not excuse the means.

25

If banks made an assumption like that, the world would still be in the middle ages.

While people may give lip service to the idea that “the ends don’t justify the means”, almost no one actually believes that. Even vegans kill plants for their own survival.

So I mean really, in any practical discussion of what would happen in the real world, the cost of failure is going to get added into the “means”. That something bad has happened and will be irrevocable is understood. People are aware that there is some chance of failure, and they rate that in when they balance out the cost and reward. But they’re not going to always assume that it will be a 100% chance of failure, like you’re saying has to be done. The actual odds of failure are going to depend on the realities of the situation. If I’ve only got a 0.1% chance of failure, I’m not going to sweat the means all that much if the ends are clearly better.

26

Ideally. But let’s take an even more extreme example, the obligatory Nazi Jew-hunt. If I’m stuffing Jews into my cellar and the friendly neighborhood Gestapo pay me a visit and asks me if there are hidden Jews there, I either say yes, then barring an errant frag through the window, I will be killed along with all of them. If I say no, they will still search, leaving a minute possibility of none being found. If I remain silent, the my refusal to cooperate would basically imply “yes”, forcing a thorough search, and endangering myself in the process.

If I attempted to pull a shotgun on them, I’d have more German lead in me than I’d ever hope to see. If I say, “I joust with caped milkmen,” then that would be a means of deception, as I both evade the question and distract them with something nonsensical, thus impeding their search, and it would most likely provoke a blow to my face. If I attempted to run, play dead, scream, pee, etc., same results. Samuel Johnson would have to accept the two options before him.

27

Let me ask it another way. Has a person who steals a car in order to save a life committed the same ethical offense as a person who steals a car in order to rob a bank? The means are identical. Are the offenses identical?

28

To the car owner? Yes. Yes, he has offended the car owner in the same way. The question is how much the car owner is willing to tolerate and forgive, which quite probably will change.

As for the Gestapo, the only answer I could give is, “You got a warrant? You got no warrant, buddy. Go get one. This is still America, right?” If, in fact, it’s not America, then I’d try real hard not to have jews in my cellar in any detectable way.

Or maybe I just wouldn’t answer the door. I mean, I got jews in my cellar, any possible result from answering the door can’t be good. (Note: Get really, really good door.)

As far as the Middle Ages, Rat? What do banks have to do with it? Vegans kill plants… and animals. Even harvesting of crops kills a lot of vermin. The ends do not justify the means, nor the means justify the ends. The fact that you have to eat does not justify killing other creatures. It just means that, yes, you chose to kill creatures to eat. Not that it was just or unjust to do so.

29

But what is behind the car owner’s decision to tolerate and forgive (or not)? Quite simply, the reason for the car being stolen in the first place, aka the end.

The end does not always justify the means; put another way, means that violate personal or social moral codes are not equally as permissible (if at all) as means that don’t, when you’re trying to achieve a certain end. But it is the end that always provides the moral justification or condemnation of the means.

30

Let me go out and come back in again. We’re getting too caught up in examples. There are right things and wrong things. They’re defined based on personal opinion, which is largely based on cultural opinion, but not entirely.

There are right things to do and wrong things to do. There are right ends, and wrong ends.
Doing a wrong thing to ensure a right end is still doing a wrong thing. Doing a right thing and winding up with a wrong end still means you have to accept the wrong end.

Lying to someone is a wrong thing. But. Lying to the murderer results in a murderer still on the loose. Which is a wrong end. Telling the truth also results in a murderer still on the loose, possibly in your house, which is also a wrong end, despite being a right thing. Killing the murderer is a wrong thing to do. You have just extinguished a life. It’s something I personally dread doing. It also leads to a right end: no more murderer. (except for me.)

The point here is that none of these choices justify the end, and none of the ends justify the choices. I have to choose and accept the consequences of my choices. I will still have killed a man, even if both I and my friend live. It is a thing I have done, and I will have to accept that fact.

When talking about the ends justifying the means, we generally are considering things like torturing people to get information to stop the bomb. Yes. The bomb is stopped. But you’re still someone who tortures people. You can’t just blow that off.

Yes, lying to the Gestapo is wrong. It’s still a lie. But you have to accept that, and live with the consequences. You can not say ‘Oh, it is nothing to lie to someone, for I did it for a good cause.’ Doing a wrong thing should always be a matter of concern.

Contrawise, standing by while someone is beaten is doing a right thing, for you are not committing violence against another living person. Of course, they are being injured, which is a wrong end. And, for the rest of your life, you will have to accept that Ms. Genovese or Mr. King is in the condition they are, and it is your fault, for you could have done something about it.

It is the point of justification that I object to.

On the other hand, I should also freely admit that my family has a long history of supporting rebellion against the state, and blood is on our hands. Iranian and Irish and English and Israeli and Palestinian blood in my lifetime. Not directly, no, but we have done things that resulted in the forseeable deaths of others. And for that, we are guilty. As well as American and Iraqi blood for our parts in the American wars. And we bear our part of that, as well.

The only thing we can do about it is accept that which we have done, and keep moving. Justification of moral choices, in either direction, is a way to toss away blame, and that is as big a violation of your personal integrity as anything else I can think of.

Edit: Olent, yes, but it is not you who makes the justification or condemnation. That is the key. You still chose to perform the act. And the act, in and of itself, is right or wrong. The larger context of the act is also right or wrong, and the values for both may not be identical. But you still have performed the act.

31

There are two broad definitions of ethics: deontological (some things are absolutely right or wrong) of which Kantian ethics is a part, and consequential ethics (outcome is what matters) of which utilitarian or “the end justifies the means” is a part. Because they are different definitions, they can be balanced, but not reconciled.

Various failed attempts at reconciling them from a deontological direction have included measures of the effect on the actor of their bad action, or some sort of overall harm to humanity by doing wrong (as in the murderer example, where the lie doesn’t do a measurable harm, but abstract and unquantified damage to the power of truth).

Neither definition works in all situations. The best counter I know of to the end justifies the means is the broadcast example - what if a transmission tower had fallen on a technician, and the only way to save his life was to deprive countless millions of a live World Cup Final broadcast? For consequential ethics to work, life must have a finite value, or various choices can’t be compared. At some point lots and lots of minor benefits will outweigh this final value, and poor Fred has to die so we get our television program.

My favorite recent work is that which doesn’t reconcile the two, but finds a means to consider both in any action. Choices must be made, and the most ethical way to make them is to consider BOTH how they affect outcome probabilities, AND the absolute right and wrong of the acts themselves.

32

The offenses are identical, but the offenses will not be judged in a vacuum. “Tried to rob a bank” and “tried to save a life” are actions too, and most typically a person will be judged for the sum of actions and results involved. So, stealing my car is still equally bad, but attempting to rob a bank and implicly involving me as an unintentional accessory is rather a lot worse than attempting to save a life and implicly involving me as an unintentional accessory. So when I judge the first set of actions I will be a lot unhappier than I would be with the second set of actions - but if at all possible, I’m going to want my car back either way.