Ends Never Justify Means?

[David Sklansky]

To those who say that it is wrong to kill one innocent person to save 1000 because an immoral act can never be justified by some greater good, I say that you need to find a better argument.

To prove that, one needs only to consider a situation where the original act was less than murder but still clearly immoral under normal circumstances. Perhaps stealing someone's car or even much worse. If it was save 1000 lives only lunatics would not condone the act, even if the victim himself would not have volunteered to allow the act to save the lives. Put another way, immoral acts can become not immoral under certain circumstances.

I'm not saying that killing one to save many is therefore morally right. I'm saying that if it is wrong, the argument that shows it has to be a lot stronger than some simplistic figure of speech.

[bearly]

well said.............b

[BluffTHIS!]

The nature of the act and its objective morality is key to determining the subjective morality/culpability of the person committing an act. Stealing a candy bar when you are homeless and starving is committing an objectively wrong act, but assuming conditions where you cannot find food and shelter not due to your own fault (like being drunk where the shelters won't take you), then since that theft is relatively minor on the scale of immoral actions and your need is grave, it would still be wrong objectively but subjectively not. However the greatest immoral act is killing another human life, so that can never be justified without the exceptions for self defense. So however grave one's "need" were to kill otherwise (you are going to die if you don't get his food so you kill him to get it and can't get it otherwise), that in no way mitigates the subjective culapability of the person committing it as in the first example.

It is obvious that our courts/judges take the circumstances into account when giving sentences to the degree allowed to by law. But that still doesn't make the criminal not guilty, just not as deserving of the same punishment as another person who commits the same act without any mitigating factors.

[luckyme]

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Put another way, immoral acts can become not immoral under certain circumstances

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There is no such action as an 'immoral act sans circumstance'. It's the circumstance that determines immorality. So, it's not as if immorality gets removed from it, it's that these circumstances don't rise to the level of immorality.

luckyme

[David Sklansky]

"But that still doesn't make the criminal not guilty, just not as deserving of the same punishment as another person who commits the same act without any mitigating factors."

Disagree. Stealing your car to save 1000 lives is simply not a crime at all. In fact NOT stealing it would be the crime. You and chez fight hard agaisnst this obvious fact because you are worried about a slippery slope. But slippery slope arguments should not be used for slam dunk cases.

[Darryl_P]

Wow! A Sklansky OP with which I'm in 100% agreement! What's the world coming to!? [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]

[Utah]

[ QUOTE ]
To those who say that it is wrong to kill one innocent person to save 1000 because an immoral act

[/ QUOTE ]Maybe this has been discussed in another post but has the term "immoral" been defined to most everyone's agreement?

And, of course, the whole idea of morality is completely silly (and dangerous) unless defined under the narrow guide of social contract theory.

[Propertarian]

There is a further, perhaps more fundemental, problem with the view that "the ends don't justify the means":

All means are also ends. The distinction between ends and means is illusory.

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

still clearly immoral under normal circumstances


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I think part of the problem concerns the definition of morality. In the Bible, motivation is often considered a determining factor. The same act by two different people may be ok for one and not ok for another. "Whatever is not from fatih is sin".

There is also the difference between what is moral and what is criminal according to human law. Only God can judge the morality of an act because only He knows all the circumstances, including motivation. Take your abortion clinic example. It's conceivable that someone could bomb a clinic and not be sinning (unlikely, but at least theoretically possible) but still be in violation of the law and properly subject to the civil authorities.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
"But that still doesn't make the criminal not guilty, just not as deserving of the same punishment as another person who commits the same act without any mitigating factors."

Disagree. Stealing your car to save 1000 lives is simply not a crime at all. In fact NOT stealing it would be the crime. You and chez fight hard agaisnst this obvious fact because you are worried about a slippery slope. But slippery slope arguments should not be used for slam dunk cases.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'd steal a car to save 1000 lives in the blink of an eye.

I've never fought at all against the obvious fact that this would be good.

chez