Ends/Means Re: [lbo-talk] What History Will Remember

lweiger at umich.edu lweiger at umich.edu
Mon Apr 7 09:03:18 PDT 2003


--On Monday, April 07, 2003 8:02 AM -0700 andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:


>
> I hate to be a bore about this, but it's not a tautology. The "ends
> justify the means' only if you are a consequentialist, and that's a
> controversial theory. Anyway, not even then. This is sloppy talk. People
> should reread the Trotsky-Dewey debate (Their Moral and Ours), in which
> two parties from different perspectives, both consequentialists who think
> that what makes an action right is that it promotes the good, agree that
> good ends do not justify any means whatsoever,

Perhaps the talk is sloppy because the dialectical terrain is vague. On a consequentialist account, the ends always do justify the means in the sense that any action (no matter how terrible it may appear) that on balance promotes the good is justified.

-- Luke



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list