On Ends Justifying Means

...Unless one assumes in a spirit of metaphysical squeamishness that all means are somehow tainted, one must recognize how limited the relevance of the question is...

...Moreover, a second thought may very likely reveal that one is not in a position to estimate the distant consequences of an apparently short-term evil...

...That is the abstract question...

...Every person must, it seems to me, decide for himself when, if ever, this is true...

...that we estimate both, our estimations affecting the adoption of each...

...Spring 1954 • DISSENT • 181 my approach will be philosophical and not immediately political...

...as Dewey saw, there is too much mobility among them...

...In this regard an analogy may be helpful...

...Stalin, and his many agencies, shared the consensus of latter-day European morality as to what means were to be deemed objectionable and, therefore, if employed, had to be justified...

...In principle, Kant's claim is, ends cannot justify means...

...What the maxim covers, after all, are certain exceptions to moral principles...

...not only must it provide an answer to this question, it should also, of course, face the over-all problem: were Lenin's realizable goals of sufficient value to warrant the measures he did take or might have taken...

...They are reminders of the many occasions, in individual lives as well as on an imposing historical scale, when the use of immoral means proved more defeating than the original situation it was thought it might ameliorate...

...and he thought the very words, "ends" and "means," were fatally divisive—in morals, metaphysics, psychology, and elsewhere...

...Like most shibboleths, it rather requires an effort to become clear about the difficulty or difficulties to which it is addressed...

...Inevitably, for Dewey, the issue of justifying means by ends was diminished...

...and belabored it while controverting positivists and idealists in his "Theory of Valuation...

...VIII Recently, Antony Flew, a British philosopher, recommended that ju.cti f ying means by ends be distinguished from accepting the lesser of two evils...

...What I shall try to argue is that the watchword, "The end can never justify the means," does not compel, even in the glare of contemporary politics, outright agreement--or, for that matter, unqualified dissent...

...rather, they bestride it...

...IV When, if ever, can an end be said to justify the means to its attainment...

...1. Some excuse is needed for still another attack on the question of whether ends can justify means...

...Munis' friends abroad are of the opinion that only an international protest and the presence of foreign observers at the trial can help the prisoners...

...seldom, however, can they suffice to justify questionable means...

...At law there exist not only statutory offenses, but also recognized defenses...

...The characteristic philosophical worry—should the maxim be followed in a particular instance, it ought to be employed as the guide for all of life—is likewise diaphanous...

...With due caution, some extrapolation can be made, I presume, from the sphere of personal conduct to that of politics...

...and the utilitarian reply—whenever the good thereby achieved outweighs the evil done...

...The prisoners, specifically accused of forming "study circles" in opposition to the Franco regime, have been denied the right to choose a lawyer or to stand trial before a civil court...

...Of course, diverse persons, groups and cultures differ as to what they find objectionable, but no one except a metaphysical puritan would judge all instrumentalities dubious...

...To believe that the maxim can be invoked universally, or even often, is either to urge a triviality, viz, that the end is the reason for resorting to the means, or to deny morality in general—and thereby contradict what the maxim itself presupposes: a common notion of what is morally objectionable...

...Others maintain that the good which may thus be realized never, in fact, outweighs the evil done...

...Admitting the bitter cumulative significance of these conclusions, they still need not be accepted in toto...

...For, often, adopting the lesser evil has been the means of avoiding the greater one...

...obviously, the argument would then devolve not on ends justifying means but on whether to accept moral principles in general...

...The demand for justification is appropriate only when the means involved—of whatever sort—are objectionable...

...Some would urge that it could never prove to be so...

...The crucial expression of this anxiety in our time is a vision of Stalinism as the "logical outcome" of a belief in the justification of means by ends, once there is a commitment to socialist goals...

...There are chapters on it in his metaphysical work, "Experience and Nature...

...plainly, then, they are inappropriate in relation to morally objectionable acts...

...A breathless condemnation of the notion that ends may on occasion justify means is no substitute for an examination of particular historical situations—especially for ascertaining whether there were alternative means...

...It is felt that, should one admit in any instance that an end justifies a means, this breath of a utilitarian breeze will be followed by the totalitarian whirlwind...

...Unfortunately, there has been a general temptation to dispose completely of the issue in this fashion...

...Munis and another leader of the group, Jaime Rodriguez, face terms of 20 years in prison...

...he debated it in the pages of the New International with Trotsky...

...IX To summarize: the elements of the realm of morals cannot be distinguished once and for all into two classes, ends and means...

...Further, if one tries to apply them to actual cases, the strength of Dewey's attack on their very formulation will become apparent—in many instances, at any rate...

...if some non-philosopher asked it, and the question were not to be taken as a request for information on what is meant by "means to an end," it would have to be understood in an ironic or Pickwickian sense...

...Of these, some hold that no good whatever does, in fact, issue from the utilization of immoral means...

...it is not merely that, as others have alleged, they never in experience do...

...The enemy in this matter—as so often for Dewey—was a set of entrenched dualisms...

...What is its moral significance...

...Shrewd and salutary as Dewey's reflections upon ends and means were, they were not without elements of exaggeration, and they tended to dissolve— before clarifying—the question, "Can ends justify means...

...and the few examples adduced will be of crude moral conflicts rather than of the complex sorts that may trouble political persons...

...Nonetheless, a close look at the issue may prove worthwhile...

...what they come to is this: situations arise in which such acts as lying or theft or violence are defensible...

...When a man is asked to justify something, if he can show—and surely sometimes it can be shown—that the step in question is not in fact objectionable, he can then insist that the demand for justification be withdrawn...

...what follows is intended for those of a non-Kantian persuasion...

...whereas in others, notably in discussions of ends justifying means, the "end" is often precisely the avoidance of a greater evil...

...Both answers bristle with obvious difficulties, and appear to demand case by case testing...

...The problem is: it is a "good enough" reason...

...Such "information" could hardly be taken to introduce a new factor into any of the classical situations of moral perplexity...

...in themselves, however, neither legal forms of defense nor honest appeals to the maxim challenge law or ethics...

...For, it may be safely presumed, anyone who is in doubt whether he ought to lie for the sake of some good which will thus be effected, knows there is a reason for lying...

...Necessarily, none of these gambits can be tried here...

...it can be countered in various ways: by appealing to opposed intuitions, by asserting that an abandonment of utilitarian considerations guarantees the lessening of good and the enlargement of evil, or by undertaking a piece-meal investigation of the bases of Kant's position...

...It can be exposed by asking, instead of "Can the end justify the means...

...Spring 1954 • DISSENT • 185 V11 Suppose a decision of this kind is reached...

...None of this is to deny that the saying is liable— perhaps peculiarly so—to abuse...

...appropriately arise...

...VI To be distinguished sharply from the Kantian doctrine are views which derive from experience their opposition to the use of any objectionable means...

...Ends are, as it were, the reasons for means...

...Nor is this utterly trivial: it establishes that even if the principle, "the end justifies the means," were accepted in all its stupefying generality, it still could not serve as the guide for conduct...

...and a few philosophers and moralists have categorically ruled out the question...

...although experience at times seems to give them the lie, they express what is involved in trying to decide whether to take recourse to undesirable means...

...the question often confused with it, "Is the end the reason for employing the means...

...But as forms of defense may be abused, so too may the appeal that the end justifies the means...

...Among its incredible presuppositions are these: Stalin's aims throughout were socialistic...

...To exaggerate the role of the maxim is not merely to ignore its limitation to extraordinary cases, but also to miss the morality implicit in it, that is, its acceptance of a consensus as to what is objectionable...

...V Sometimes it is said—as the most scrupulous philosopher of our century, G. E. Moore, put it—that "the end always will justify the means...

...Insofar as the traditional way of putting it could be retained, the solution, he thought, was apparent and trivial...

...very importantly, the same or similar standards may be appealed to in the course of estimating both ends and means...

...Again, it should be noticed, they are not written on universal check blanks...

...He offered this dictum as a tautology, or as something very like one...

...at the least, the problem was to be recast, once it had been seen that the terms whereby it is ordinarily formulated are misleading...

...Given its meaning, so to speak, the principle can apply only to a fraction of conduct...

...For those who understandably are agitated by the possible size of the fraction, a reminder is in order: it is rare, indeed, that a man can be reasonably certain that enough over-all good will eventuate for him to be justified in using morally doubtful means...

...From all too many vantage points it is nowadays a commonplace to observe that recent political experience has demonstrated that ends can never justify means...

...Indeed, the appreciation of moral principles themselves stands in some such need...

...III Among philosophers who have exerted extra-academic influence, none was as concerned with ends and means as John Dewey...

...underlying such misgivings is an awareness of the ease with which the maxim can be exploited, a sense of its convenience as a plausible rationalization...

...For instance, the worry that Koestler raises in "The God That Failed"— Spring 1954 • DISSENT • 183 should the principle that the end justifies the means be anywhere accepted, it may be accepted everywhere—is thereby somewhat quieted, though only somewhat...

...For these and other reasons, he insisted upon the similarities of things which are often distinguished as ends and means, and indeed almost sought to identify them...

...Stalin had recourse only to those means which appeared absolutely necessary for the attainment of Socialist goals...

...In such a situation the person of whom the demand has been made can say: there is nothing to justify...

...Needless to say, a most problematic and distressing fraction...

...Such a protest is already being organized in England and Western Europe...

...That we neither merely appraise means nor solely prize ends...

...But in practice, he repeatedly warned, the terms are seldom capable of as neat and distinct an application as their usage might suggest...

...Some persons, I suppose, may find these presuppositions credible...

...Conspicuously, these doctrines have the merit of being located at the center of the problem...

...here I want only to observe that, should one ever so decide, he is then deciding that the end justifies the means...

...That is, for those who do not hold that in principle there can be no defensible exceptions to moral rules, or that breaches of conduct are necessarily unjustifiable...

...For an unqualified affirmative answer to the latter is indisputable and unenlightening...

...No one, it should be stressed, was more alert than Dewey as to how something originally instituted as a means might silently metamorphose into an end...

...no doubt, many things 182 • DISSENT • Spring 1954 prove valuable both instrumentally and finally...

...the latter serve to specify exceptions to what is otherwise legally prohibited...

...Ends are thought of as positive goods, yet the saying, "The end justifies the means," has long been used, not only in connection with attaining positive goods, but also concerning many instances of the adoption of courses of lesser evil...

...Notwithstanding the views of a surprising number of philosophers, it is absurd to raise the question in regard to any and all means...

...So formulated, the maxim, "The end justifies the means," applies, at worst, to a fraction of undesirable acts...

...An appealing example, this, of the philosopher's penchant for verbal recommendations...

...The point can be enforced in a slightly different way...

...Further, anyone who would appeal to the maxim in regard to a significant portion of conduct is liable to a paralyzing embarrassment...

...Views of this kind—Kant provides a celebrated statement of them in his 184 • DISSENT • Spring 1954 "On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives"— may be thought to dismiss the problem...

...if means, qua means, are to be justified, they must be so in terms of the ends they subserve...

...to put them in a tendentiously simplified manner, there was Kant's response—never...

...For the most part, I have tried to dismay specters that appear almost mechanically nowadays when the justification of means by ends is considered...

...It will not be gratuitous to add that stark generalizations of this type need to be clothed in particularity and detail...

...Expelled by the French police, he joined the anti-Fascist emigration in Mexico, from which he had recently returned to Spain despite the danger he faced...

...What is more, the saying "the end justifies the means" can never legitimize the use of objectionable means should there exist less objectionable ones...

...It remains the case that individuals— political groups less so—can sometimes, however seldom, be reasonably certain that the violation of a principle may result in enough good or lessening of evil to justify the violation...

...but that would be largely to discount moral principles themselves...

...The more thoroughgoing a dualism was, the more suspect, he seemed to feel, it must be...

...Certainly, what is sometimes a means is often pursued or maintained for its own sake, and, conversely, ends may become means...

...The almost banal answer I have reaffirmed is that if a man is reasonably certain that enough good, or over-all lessening of evil, will eventuate thereby, the means may be justified...

...The critique, for instance, of Lenin's tactics in the early 'Twenties must, if it is to be at all responsible, take into account whether there were less dubious means available to the Bolsheviks...

...what is more, that nearly anything which is an end can also serve as a means, and vice versa—this, roughly, was the substance of his attack upon the venerable dichotomy...

...The existence of legally admissible plans of defense does not, it will be admitted, constitute an overwhelming threat to Iaw...

...the maxim, therefore, should not be applied when it is a matter only of evils...

...Rational consideration of the issue is at present markedly inhibited...

...Nonetheless, there is a residue of feeling which has to be honored, the feeling that, however limited its application, the maxim somehow tends to damage the foundations of morals...

...In what circumstances does the question, "Can taking recourse to these particular means be justified...

...Kant's claim is a transcendental one...

...Yet when all this is acknowledged, certain moral and political problems still seem to stand out from the process of experience as formulable—indeed, all but to require formulation—in the language of ends and means...

...He would be claiming, in effect, that the violation of moral principles can be defended in other than extraordinary circumstances...

...Ends," he stated, are "positive goods...

...This judgment ,however, would be premature...

...A short-shrift disposal of this hesitation 186 • DISSENT • Spring 1954 would be insensitive...

...Evil, they have insisted, should never be done, regardless of the consequences, irrespective of any accrual of good or over-all lessening of evil which may thus eventuate...

...Finally, there are those—and there have been famous utilitarians among them—who think that no one is ever so favorably situated as to be reasonably certain that the good to be attained from using objectionable means will outbalance the evil done...

...he is in a position to claim that the demand is misconceived and superfluous...

...Nonetheless, there are certainly occasions when men, both individually and in groups, adopt various measures and use diverse objects in such a manner as to make it sensible to say that they are employing them as means to ends...

...It can, I think, be kept within limits simply by observing that, in many contexts, an "end" is a positive good...

...Is there a way to control this burning dilemma...

...Two are notorious...

...Approving it is tantamount only to thinking that circumstances may occur of such a kind as to warrant breaking a promise, leaving a debt unpaid, or, to use an example of which the early Jesuits were fond, committing tyrannicide...

...He found himsef aroused by the topic in a variety of contexts...

...for him, it followed from certain definitions of "means" and "end...

...others, that in some circumstances it might be...

...All too often the gains thereby realized proved insufficient, finally, to justify what had been done...

...that it is pertinent only in connection with the use of immoral or otherwise exceptionable means...

...In the history of moral speculation, a number of equally abstract answers—often conflicting—have been given...

...Yet no one, if only in deference to the complexity of the matter, should be confident that humanity is better served by an unqualified negation of the saying...

...The present attempt is occasioned by the conviction that the pendulum of thought concerning the issue seems fixed at an extreme and simple-minded point of reaction...

...Thus, the question narrows...

...The same may be said of the apparently contrary maxim, "The end always justifies the means...

...Dewey brought home the realization that in numerous ways the dichotomy is artificial and even invidious...

...Munis fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War...

...To illustrate: if one is in doubt whether to lie—or, possibly, to commit an act of violence— for the sake of some good or some lessening of evil which would thereby ensue, to be told at such a juncture that the end is the reason for resorting to the means, or to be informed that, since something can cause a good result, there exists a reason for adverting to it, is to be told little or nothing...

...Perhaps to call "The end justifies the means" a "principle" is misleading...

...11 In what follows I shall be mainly concerned to show the sensible and, as it were, logical limits of the maxim, "The end justifies the means...

...Sometimes, the means are objectionable...

...He was imprisoned by the Stalinists after the May, 1936 uprising in Barcelona but escaped, with Rodriguez, to France...

...Considerations of consequences, they have argued, are always out of place in ethics...

...An urgent communication from Contemporary Issues informs us of the arrest six months ago in Spain of Grandizo Munis, an old Trotskyist, and nine others on charges of "attempting to form a revolutionary organization with a view of overthrowing the government...

...Insofar as it was true, it was trivially true, and did not affect what was materially in question...

...The greatest of these bogies, that Stalinism is somehow the consequence of socialism when socialism is coupled to the doctrine that ends justify means, turns to nothingness before a moment's scrutiny...

...Throughout, I shall be trying to allay exaggerated worries concerning the notion that ends can sometimes justify means...

...Of those who have ruled it out, more than one have spoken with haunting authority...

...And perhaps this Spring 1954 • DISSENT • 187 sense is required for it ever to be plausible that moral principles may have exceptions...

...it may be labeled "the scholastic temptation...

...In particular, he thought that uncritical usage of these terms and their synonyms was an obstacle to the discernment of continuities between science and values...

...and thereupon the question arises, "Is their use justifiable...

...Short, however, of the definite establishment of all of them—and, it should be added, of others also—it is to forgo pontificating about the bearing of Soviet politics upon the problem of ends and means...

...How alarming are endorsements of ends justifying means...

...Even to pose the question is curious...

...the abstract language of good and evil can never convey a sense of mattering, of urgency, love or equity...

...But this is a fantasy, if ever there was one, of ignorance so compounded as to be malicious...