Poll: The Ends Justifes The Means

[Bibliomancer]

I think like Ozymandias from Watchmen. If the end is a good enough cause, then the mean will me worth it.

Oxymandias was wrong though. The reason being that he destroyed a city to prevent a HYPOTHETICAL war. He had no way of knowing what would have happened had he not done what he did, making it unjustifiable. That would be like me deciding that my neighbor might steal my car and killing him to stop that from happening.

 

[sallene]

True but I figured typical home invasion style. Boot in the back door and bring along the 12 gauge for a Turkey Shoot. The luring thing might work but I imagine that would alert the cops since it would take longer then one night of rampage.

True, but then you can always do the black bag treatment and stalk them and wait for the right moment to strike, and then you can always make it look like an suicide to keep the cops of your trail.

Lets face it, if a person is on the sex offenders list chances are their life isnt going to great so a suicide might not be looked at too closely.

Me and you should probably not ever meet in real life otherwise there could be a severe lack of perverts and thermite.

This is very likely, but I cant help but picture it in a children book picture depicting our adventure "oh what fun we'll have".



Wow....

reading that last sentence really hit home the fact that I am pretty twisted individual.

ah well, self realiztion is a good thing.

 

[nolongerhere]

It depends who it is being justified to.
If I were to kill a thousand people to save one life, then you might think the ends cannot justify the means, no matter who the person was.
However, if I love that person deeply, then I might disagree.
That doesn't make it right, but one person thinks the end justifies this action.
However, if you were to kill one person to save a thousand, that may be considered justified by the majority of people.
The person that had to die would probably disagree, as would their family.
My point is that the ends can always justify the means. It just depends on where you are standing.

 

[Mray3460]

It depends on the ends and it depends on the means. There is no one, universal rule in this matter.

 

[Agayek]

I would say it is acceptable, actually.

Of course, if I had to kill a million innocents to save my own life, I would also class that acceptable, so what do I know?

But we all know you're homocidal.

From a moral standpoint, the way I see it is that human life cannot be valued, or at least the value cannot be used because it will be different for each person (ie, their own life is always of far more value than anyone else), and so qualifying an act of murder with the excuse that more murders would have happened is blatantly wrong.

Oh Dexter.
Why can't you be real? Why?

If it means anything, I can't watch that show because Dexter reminds me way too much of myself.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

I think like Ozymandias from Watchmen. If the end is a good enough cause, then the mean will me worth it.

Oxymandias was wrong though. The reason being that he destroyed a city to prevent a HYPOTHETICAL war. He had no way of knowing what would have happened had he not done what he did, making it unjustifiable. That would be like me deciding that my neighbor might steal my car and killing him to stop that from happening.

And therein lies the entire problem with the idea that says "it depends on the ends." You can't know for sure what the "ends" will be or the consequences that follow.

Say you choose to "kill one man to save thousands." But that one man turned out to be a doctor, and his killing of thousands was done in pursuit of a cure for cancer (they died from failed cures). So his killing of thousands actually lead to the saving of tens of thousands. But out of those tens of thousands who would be saved, 200 of them go on to rape and murder and steal from innocent people. Where do you draw the line? Pragmatism has the danger of being both narrow- and short-sighted.

That said, Ozymandias kicks ass.

 

[Xvito]

After reading the "You Cant Be The Hero If Your A Rapist" topic I noticed an under lying arguement that i thought I would bring to Daylight. Does the ends justify the means? What is your views on this do you support it? or are you against it?

Some examples:
If a man steals food to feed his starving family?
If you kill a murderer.
etc
(Would appreciate any extra examples given as this is all i have.)

If you kill someone, then you're a murderer no matter who you kill...

Also, define ends and means.

 

[Stoplesteimer]

Everything is subjective and has to be reviewed on a case by case basis.

If it is justifiable to kill one to save a thousand, is is also justifiable to kill 999 to save 1000?
Would you still kill those 999 if your family were part of that group?

How does age play into this? Is it okay to kill 100 senior citizens to save a baby?

Let's say you kill a serial killer, thats justified right? but what if that serial killers next victim was the next Hitler? Would you still do it? Is the killing still justified?

The problem with judging the ends and the means is that the ends are unknown, and the means are often not considered fully.

 

[Firebert]

I believe that killing in self-defense or in the defense of others is okay in life or death situations. Everything's very subjective and specific to the situation, though.

 

[Lazarus Long]

Yes. Anything up to and including murder is justified depending on the situation.

Rape, as always, is a no-no.
Rape is bad, kids.
Don't do it.

I may have found the exception. Marcellus Wallace bringing in his pipe-hittin dudes to prison-rape Zed's buddy. That one I can get behind. So to speak.

 

[Lord Raiyu]

Thats why we need to change the meaning of "Justice" cause now its Epic Failing.

 

[confernal]

Only if its a final end.

 

[arc101]

i believe no, if you do anything against the law, or against humanity or against the laws of life to do something for, what will generally be called a success for you, is wrong and canot be justified

 

[spuddyt]

More often than not, yes so i've voted yes

 

[Unknower]

The end justifies the means and the means justify the end.

 

[kiwisushi]

A lot of interesting points.

Human nature itself is competitive, against themselves and anything else. We have some instinct to know what is right and what is wrong, but can and are pushed or motivated to discount these things. We eventually just plain believe what we are doing is right from our viewpoints. Nobody can ever assess anything from every angle knowing all possible permutations of an event so can only speculate on an end. If someone believes enough that the end is truly outweighing the cost of getting there then yes, the end justifies the means and nobody can tell them otherwise. Nothing is really a cut and shut case, it just depends on psychology of the person.

Personally I do think that there is some definitive wrongs and rights, all of which have already been mentioned to be honest.