The Ends Justifies the Means

Meaning, in the name of a good result you may use whatever means necessary.  The problem though is that this statement defeats itself because there is no result that is purely isolated from its agents.  Every action is inseparably connected to its reaction, every cause, its effect.  If I kill someone bad to save someone good then Machiavelli would have deemed my endeavor a success.  But what this simplified example does not address was the world in which these actors lived.  The fact that someone had to die is still wrong.  Though some good may be produced from a given action, bad still equals bad.  There exists redemptive qualities as optional outcomes in a situation but usage of evil or wrong or ‘bad’ is not eradicated in light of its ‘good’ effects.  For example, perhaps I become fatally ill.  In my few moments left to live I gain perspective on the meaning of life and turn my life over to the Lord.  Well now again we have something ‘bad’ (illness) producing something ‘good’ (salvation).  I would contest that the event, which was bad, was turned for good.  But the fact that illness and unsaved persons exist in the world to begin with is still wrong.  There was a redemptive purpose accomplished but we can never call that which is ‘bad,’ ‘good’ so as to put them on the same team.  So if by justify, we mean validate (which is what the word means) then this cannot be the case.  There is no such thing as a good end to a bad mean.

 

Let us then replace simple terms in the statement so to see the implied result.  The good end validates the bad means, or even more simply put: good validates bad.  Good makes bad good.  I never want to call evil good or good evil but I fear this is employed within this mood of thinking.  The whole mood of analysis is backwards.  It is the means which justifies or condemns the ends.

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