{"id":53726,"date":"2019-11-05T12:19:50","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T06:49:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?page_id=53726"},"modified":"2019-11-05T12:19:59","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T06:49:59","slug":"answered-with-regard-to-the-morality-of-actions-one-view-is-that-means-is-of-paramount-importance-and-the-other-view-is-that-the-ends-justify-the-means-which-view-do-you-think-is-more-appropriate","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/answered-with-regard-to-the-morality-of-actions-one-view-is-that-means-is-of-paramount-importance-and-the-other-view-is-that-the-ends-justify-the-means-which-view-do-you-think-is-more-appropriate\/","title":{"rendered":"[Answered] With regard to the morality of actions, one view is that means is of paramount importance and the other view is that the ends justify the means. Which view do you think is more appropriate? Justify your answer."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Demand of the question<\/strong>
Introduction. <\/strong>Contextual Introduction.
Body. <\/strong>What is more appropriate- End or Means?
Conclusion. <\/strong>Way forward. <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n\n\n\n

The means-ends debate is a paramount ethical dilemma of modern world. Ends justify the means (Machiavelli) refers to a situation in which the final aim is considered so important that any way of achieving it is acceptable. Whereas, people like Gandhi firmly rejected the rigid dichotomy between ends and means to the extent that they believed that means and not the ends provide the standard of reference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is more appropriate- End or Means?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. The answer to the question depends on what the\nends or goals are and what means are being used to achieve them. If the goals\nare good and noble, and the means we use to achieve them are also good and\nnoble, then yes, the ends do justify the means. <\/li>
  2. The \u2018ends justifying the means\u2019 usually involves\ndoing something wrong to achieve a positive end and justifying the wrong doing\nby pointing to a good outcome. There are certain things to consider in such a\nsituation: the morality of the action, the morality of the outcome, and the\nmorality of the person performing the action.<\/li>
  3. The reason the means are important, maybe more\nimportant than the ends, is how we get to our goal is just as important as\ngetting there. In other words, destiny tells us what we are to the world, but\njourney tells who we are; it\u2019s the journey that unlocks our potential and\nestablishes who we are as a person and what motivates us towards action.<\/li>
  4. Thus, it can be said that both the views are\nappropriate depending on the situation and therefore there is no one size fits\nall approach. For example, when police carries out fake encounters of\ncriminals; the means is not ethical. Although they were criminals and a threat\nto society, the police does not have right to kill them. So, here ends achieved\nis unethical because means is not justifiable. <\/li>
  5. But during certain situations means may not be\nethical, but ends matter more, like physical torture of a terrorist to know\nwhere he has planted bomb in the city. Here, although means (use of torture) is\nnot ethical, but it is essential to know the whereabouts of bomb to prevent death\nof innocent people. Thus, the situation influences ends as well as means.<\/li>
  6. A civil servant has to maintain the delicate\nbalance between what they\u2019re trying to accomplish and the means that they use\nto get there, such that in certain circumstances a particular means is ethical\nbut the same means in other circumstances would be unethical. He cannot\ncompromise the one for the other because his actions are watched by the\nsociety-he being a role model for them; he has to be upright in both in every\npossible circumstance, which can be analysed as follows:<\/li>
  7. If a civil servant goes out of the rules and\nregulations (legality) and helps a needy out of compassion, it may bring a huge\nburden on the exchequer and also encourage others to approach him, but this was\nnot as per the law (right things in a wrong way).<\/li>
  8. If a civil servant uses his power and authority\nto take revenge from someone he had biases against, like through repeated raids\non his premises or holding him accountable for any wrong in his area etc (wrong\nthings in a right way).<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Saul Alinsky said \u201cOne\u2019s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one\u2019s personal interest in the issue\u201d. But for a civil servant it is not his personal interests which matters, but the public interest and the authority he is reposed with because he is a public servant and implements policies for the larger welfare of the society, and in doing so he cannot compromise on either- the means or the ends. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Demand of the question Introduction. Contextual Introduction. Body. What is more appropriate- End or Means? Conclusion. Way forward. The means-ends debate is a paramount ethical dilemma of modern world. Ends justify the means (Machiavelli) refers to a situation in which the final aim is considered so important that any way of achieving it is acceptable.… Continue reading [Answered] With regard to the morality of actions, one view is that means is of paramount importance and the other view is that the ends justify the means. Which view do you think is more appropriate? Justify your answer.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":49132,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-53726","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53726","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}