Please explain the "end justifies the means" if you can?
by 
Dirty-Ninja-Misses-NYC
ANSWERS: 12
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Example: Say my family is starving. I steal food to feed them. Even though I have stolen, I've kept my family from starving. The end (at least to me and my family) justifies the means ~ stealing.
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The reward (end) makes the effort (means) worthwhile. Putting in a lot of sweat and tears into a project so you can get yourself a huge bonus check would be a perfect situation to use that phrase.
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what ever it takes to achieve your desired out come is acceptable. But- its not true. One must maintain an ethical standard.
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When you do something bad for a really really good reason.
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I guess the *best* example I can come up with is making a sacrifice in order to achieve a goal. Say you have cancer...and the treatments are excruciating, while they may be awful, you proceed because if successful you will continue to live.
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It is a concept that proposes that attaining a desired result is so important that the utilization of any method available, regardless of any ethical notion or consequence, is acceptable if the goal itself is "good".
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If you can't read between the quotes you won't get it.
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It is a rationalisation that humans use to get what they feel they ought to have. eg I want that promotion, so I will spread slanderous messages about my competition. He/she will be eliminated on that basis, and I will get the job. or as speedy-g said:Say my family is starving. I steal food to feed them. Even though I have stolen, I've kept my family from starving. The end (at least to me and my family) justifies the means ~ stealing. In neither of these scenarios is the action correct, but both feel they were justified in taking the action they did.
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setting a goal and working towards that goal
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All illustrated thoroughly in Machiavelli's "The Prince". ;-)
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In ethics, it can mean that the end goal (what you want) justifies the means (how you get there). This has the potential to by immoral as you have justified everything you need to do to get to the end goal, which maybe a good thing. Example: your goal is to have a peaceful society. In order to do this, you kill a nation of people because there have been economic sanctions on them that have made them unhappy (threatening to disturb the peace). In this case, the end goal was met (peace), this justified the means (killing a nation of people), but the act was not truly justified. In the most ethical cases, both means and ends are justified.
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i dunno but i enterpret it as meaning when a deed has been done, it explains why it was done; "the means". So instead of asking why someone is doing something, wait until they are done and you will see
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