I disagree that the ends justifies the means. You should never sacrafice other morals in the quest to achieve a "greater good." The means influences the ends and how you come about something should be clean and honest and dignified otherwise your whole effort will be fowled and corrupted.
- Nowhere have I stated that you shouldn't try to anticipate the future. The distinction lies with understanding that anticipation of the future doesn't make it a guaranteed future.
- As far as objectively more beneficial results this is subjective, reliant on whether you factor in negative actions, how you weigh the concrete negative actions against the conceptual potential benefits. In other words, shall we bake all the Jews to benefit the German economy? Shall we conquer China, so the Japanese people can thrive?
- Again, the path taken for Guatanamo Bay was done so from a purported greater good stance. What are the lives and emotional and physical health of very few, as compared to the potential of another 9/11? Let's flip the scenario as viewed by "Islamic freedom fighters". Considering the past policies of the U.S., what's the lives of 3000 people or more, weighed against the entire wellbeing of the Middle East?
I think the idea of “ends justifying means†as it has been discussed here is an oversimplification and misinterpretation of the Machiavellian concept for a couple of reasons. First of all, Machiavelli pointed out from jump that leaders and statesmen have to sacrifice personal morality in order to do what’s necessary for both the preservation of themselves and the interests of their state. He was a realist, but he was not a relativist. He believed people who do evil, even if it is for some greater good, have still done evil. However, he believed that since the ultimate good of a statesman is preservation of his state, this is the only criteria that anyone is going to judge them by. Thus, it is the only thing that should be of concern to him as no one is going to pat him on the back if society falls apart but he can say he kept his nose clean.
I also think it’s important to point out that while he acknowledged that immoral action was necessary for the preservation of the state, he never advocated cruelty or evil for its own sake, and even went so far as to say these things ought to be avoided by a good Prince. Which brings me to Jenaphor’s 2nd point that included the historical examples from WWII. In strictly Machiavellian terms, the Holocaust is problematic, but The Rape of Nanjing is debatable. War was good (at least initially) for the economic health of Germany, but Hitler could have easily rallied the German people around a nationalist cause without eugenics.
So, a well-executed German conquest of Europe to jumpstart business? Good. Arbitrary genocide of your own people for no discernable benefit to anyone? Not so good.
The Japanese invasion of China is a little different. In the broadest terms, colonizing a country that was vulnerable due to serious internal instability (who you don’t like anyways) for the purpose of fueling modernization within your own state is legitimate. Committing mass atrocities in a strategically significant city like Nanjing in order to break the political will of your opponent is distasteful, but also legitimate. It helped to subdue the Chinese resistance, and was good for morale in Japan when people might have had doubts about going into a two-front war against the Americans. (Although, to digress, the massacres in Central China were not entirely a matter of policy, but opportunism in the face of poor military discipline and propaganda overhype.)
Would Machiavelli have said either case was good in a moral sense? No, of course not. But if the whole purpose of your existence is to forward the interests of your state, then that question is a moot point.
Coffee is good.
I just bawlk at relativism, particularly when its presented as a fact, Chesterton totally tore most of the Nietzsche lite which has since become popular to pieces in a very simple argument in a book entitled orthodoxy, he suggested that it was moral cowardice to suggest such a thing as beyond good and evil was possible, you were either extra good or extra evil but it was/is one of those definitive things its impossible to do without.
I dont know what it is that makes good people blame authority or suspiscious of dichotomies like this right away, perhaps its a deep down hope that Socrates was right and that no one knowingly does harm or evil and that the only evil is really ignorance of the good but it bothers me and its why I tend to retort like that. Often its not something which has been thought out that much and is just thrown out with expectations of acceptance or a kind of easily knocked down moral outrage.
I found this post interesting given that I understand you to be Catholic, and wondered what your take was on just war theory, which is deeply rooted in the works of St. Augustine and Aquinas. Both of who argued for a doctrine that acknowledges that you sometimes have to knowingly perpetrates evil to combat injustice or existential threat.
On the same note, I wondered what you and everyone else thought about humanitarian intervention, given your feelings on consequentialism.
I would respond, but want [MENTION=14298]Lord Guess[/MENTION] to explain their POV first.
), I just think even from a logical stand point society can't exist properly if the majority of people are running around killing, raping, cheating, lying, etc. And I also believe in equality, so I think people should at least try to hold themselves to the same standard. The point is improving and making the world a better place, even a little
