Do The Means Justify The Ends?

It's the bombing Japan thread that made me think of it but a lot of times people use "so you think the ends justify the means" as a criticism. I've never really understood this.

Obviously its at least possible for the ends to justify the means (say the ends is eating ice cream and the means is using a spoon) but the opposite belief strikes me as much more dangerous (ie using the spoon is inherently good even if you kill someone with it).

Is there a middle ground (other than adding "sometimes" to the front) that hasn't occurred to me? Do people really believe the means is a justification?

I blame Immanual Kant for destroying ethics for the past several centuries.

Ok, not really serious about that, but I think most people tend to identify specific actions as always wrong since it's easier that way. No one is going to spend their lives playing the consequentialist game and try and figure out the net gains/loss from a action.

Enter deontology, which is really just an incredibly complex rationalization to justify emotional responses to specific actions, hence why people will pull the switch on a trolly, but won't push a fat man off a bridge. "You should use these means because its your duty to."

Answer: Always.

Originally posted by Robtard
Answer: Always.

So, if you used acceptable means (whatever they are) and ended up with well, horrible ends, those means are still justified?

Or am I completely misreading what you said?

aren't justifications context dependent anyways?

ie: nothing can always justify something else. It wouldn't be a trying exercise to think of a way that using a spoon to eat ice cream could be unjustified (someone else's ice cream/spoon, denying it to those who need it, etc).

So like with capital punishment, I generally feel the means of "not killing" justifies the consequences, but there are certainly consequences that might make me question that. I guess that brings up subjectivity as well.

I'd also say there is a massive difference between justify in terms of "this is what actions would produce the end" and "the reasons these actions were morally acceptable is because of the end".

Originally posted by inimalist
aren't justifications context dependent anyways?

Originally posted by Lucius
So, if you used acceptable means (whatever they are) and ended up with well, horrible ends, those means are still justified?

Or am I completely misreading what you said?

"Do The Means Justify The Ends?" Implies that the end result was the desired result for the given situation. What is the topic, is reaching that desired end result worth doing anything/paying any price along the way.

So the answer is still "always."

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
It's the bombing Japan thread that made me think of it but a lot of times people use "so you think the ends justify the means" as a criticism. I've never really understood this.

Obviously its at least possible for the ends to justify the means (say the ends is eating ice cream and the means is using a spoon) but the opposite belief strikes me as much more dangerous (ie using the spoon is inherently good even if you kill someone with it).

Is there a middle ground (other than adding "sometimes" to the front) that hasn't occurred to me? Do people really believe the means is a justification?

Which of course only bad kinds of consequentialist ethical theories do.

Utilitarianism.

That's all I have to say.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Utilitarianism.

That's all I have to say.

Nuff said.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Utilitarianism.

That's all I have to say.

Utility Monsters?

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Utility Monsters?

no, it just shows you can be an academic in the humanities without having to do much....

Originally posted by Omega Vision
Lol. Isn't that just a theoretical concept?

The dramatic version is purely imaginary (a sadist who gets infinite pleasure from killing people).

More minor versions are built into Mill's utilitarianism. He believed in qualitative ranking of pleasures. That is the pleasure gained from the things he thought were best outweighed other things. From there the stretch to a utility monster isn't very far, we can sacrifice people's minor pleasures (push-pin as Bentham would put it) in favor of real pleasures.

There was also someone (Aristotle?) who believed human capacity for pleasure varied. Justifications for utility monsters are fairly simple in that case as well: Those people can't get real enjoyment from life so we may as well use them as slaves. Given that this sort of reasoning really did happen its worth being aware of when considering utilitarian arguments. It's necessary context (I think) for Le Guin's story The Ones Who Walk Away From Olemas.

You can get utility monsters from a different angles, too. In liberty based systems the classic is forcing people to be happy. Science fiction addressees this as a computer overlord who only wants what is best for us (or Skinner's "Board of Planners"😉. Thus the issue is not that the monster gets more pleasure but that we get more pleasure.

Again, this isn't a pure hypothetical. Setting aside the totally hysterical people you can look at those who have written about trends in the use of private information. We already have millions of people who sacrifice privacy to social networking sites and game companies in order to make their lives easier (which is functionally the same as pleasure if we go back to Bentham).

So yeah, the utility monsters that people write about can be dismissed but they're really meant to highlight a genuine problem that can be seen with utilitarianism.

I said I wouldn't say anymore, but I have to.

Utilitarianism has many different flavors. You can pick and choose which versions you like and then criticize those but that's almost arbitrary.

I merely sought to bring us to this thread's inevitable outcome: a thought problem over utilitarian ethics.

Hare's approach, as it applies to this thread, to Utilitarianism is "sound": we all seek to make both intuitive and critical decisions concerning our ethics. That still does not directly answer the thread, however, it can form the foundations for a conclusory* thought.

*For you legal buffs, I chose that word very much on purpose.

This is kinda like "beauty is in the eye of the beholder"...that is for those who don't believe in absolutes or absolute authority

Pyrrhic victory
Meaning
A victory gained at too great a cost.

Origin
King Pyrrhus of Epirus gained such a victory over the Romans in 279 BC at the battle of Asculum in Apulia. The battle was fought between Pyrrhus' army and the Romans, commanded by Consul Publius Decius Mus. The Epiriotic forces, although they won the battle, suffered severe losses of the elite of their army