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The ends never justify the means.
"The ends justifies the means" is pretty much the antithesis of paladinism.
In general, I'd say maybe/sometimes.
It would really depend on the god I guess. And the end payoff for Law/Good would have to far outweigh the minor nature of the transgression.
Honestly, if there was a nasty situation where a paladin had to sacrifice an infant to save the world and everyone in it, I think the nature of the paladin is such that they'd need to let the world burn. But the moral of that story might be "the real world doesn't actually have a place for the unbending ethos of the paladin". Having said that, I think any paladin I'd play would kill the child to save everybody else, as they'd probably value the world over their own personal sense of honour and the right to call themselves paladin. I'd even enjoy being put in that situation, although I understand many wouldn't. I think it'd make a great story, which I value more than my characters' powers.
I'd never put anyone else in that situation without feeling them out first though. Too many people understandably can't handle such messing with their PC.
But your question has prompted a great thought for me. When a paladin player of mine is about to do something on the brink of naughty, I tend to warn them - which occasionally leads to an extended discussion mid-game to work through one way or the other.
Next time this happens, I'm going to stop time and have the god pop into the pally's consciousness/drag the paladin's consciousness to their plane. The discussion can then be IC, which will be much more fun (and probably more polite in general :D ), and hopefully shorter!
yes
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The ends never justify the means.This makes no sense.
Perhaps you mean that the means must justify themselves, or that the ends do not always justify the means.
No, I mean the ends never justify the means. There is no circumstance in which the ends justify the means. You don't have to like my answer, but it is my answer and I did not mistype.
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That is a hard question cause in life there can be choices that are not going to be right or wrong the paladin should do the best thing he can in a situation like that. You can certainly try to save everyone but, there is a possibility of not being able to. Also, a paladin can under certain circumstances work with evil people. Paladin code says they can work with evil but only for the greater good.
Paladin code http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes/paladin.html#_paladin
"The ends justifies the means" is pretty much the antithesis of paladinism.
And while this is absolutely true, the wiggle room (the very small amount of wiggle room) comes from the subjective nature of morals and ethics. For example, I pretty much consider killing anyone "wrong", even though it may be necessary (for example, even though I think killing is wrong, I still applaud the efforts of those who tried to assassinate Hitler - doesn't make it right, I just accept that it would be better for everyone except Hitler). That's not to say that I apply that to RPGs - ethics and morals work differently in these imaginary universes. But, what you think is wrong and evil, that dude might have a good argument for considering it right and good, even in fantasy land.
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Yes. If the Paladin had to kill an infant to save the world, the Paladin would do it.
He would also fall like stone and get the breath knocked out of him when he hits, but he'd also feel like he deserved it. That's basically what a Paladin is, they can make the hard choices, but they'll also feel wretched about it afterwards.
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Yes. If the Paladin had to kill an infant to save the world, the Paladin would do it.
He would also fall like stone and get the breath knocked out of him when he hits, but he'd also feel like he deserved it. That's basically what a Paladin is, they can make the hard choices, but they'll also feel wretched about it afterwards.
Well put.
I guess another way to put it is that the end may justify the means for a paladin, but that may still mean he violates his code and has to pay the price. Which a true paladin would.
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No, I mean the ends never justify the means. There is no circumstance in which the ends justify the means. You don't have to like my answer, but it is my answer and I did not mistype.The ends never justify the means.This makes no sense.
Perhaps you mean that the means must justify themselves, or that the ends do not always justify the means.
Help me understand this. Perhaps we have differing definitions of the terms. It's not about liking or not liking your answer, I don't understand your answer!
In the example used in other posts, does saving the world (the ends) justify killing the infant (the means)?
Does going shopping justify buying a bus ticket?
'The end never justifies the means'? Surely, it sometimes does and sometimes doesn't.
I think we must mean different things, but I can't work out what you mean. : /
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Yes. If the Paladin had to kill an infant to save the world, the Paladin would do it.
He would also fall like stone and get the breath knocked out of him when he hits, but he'd also feel like he deserved it. That's basically what a Paladin is, they can make the hard choices, but they'll also feel wretched about it afterwards.
Exactly. If the Paladin couldn't sacrifice himself in place of the infant, then he would save the world by killing the child and destroying everything he ever was or is, and suffering the same fate as the child.
This is NOT martyrdom.
It simply is how he/she should act.
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"The ends justify the means" is a succinct explanation of consequentialist moral systems (the most common being utilitarianism). In such systems, it is the result of an action which determines the moral worth of the action. In utilitarianism, this is usually determined by whether the action in question has generated or destroyed utility (which usually means happiness, as consequentalism and utilitarianism tend towards hedonism).
The reverse of such a system would be a deontological system. Deontological systems have rules and those rules cannot be violated. The ten commandments, for instance, are deontological in nature. The moral of any action in such a system can be compared to rules the system have (whether they come from on high or are deduced my a mortal moral philosopher). Kant is a good example of a sophisticated (if, IMHO, not convincing) deontological moral system. Note that Kant was a very serious dude and he held what some might call 'lawful stupid' views (you CANNOT lie to a murderer about where your neighbor is, for instance).
The paladin code is squarely in the deontological camp. The literary archetype that the paladin is part of and the constellation of tropes that make up the universe of storytelling around paladins is always deontological.
Malachi, the term "the end justifies the means" is broadly meant to mean "achieving the goal justifies in and of itself any and all actions that may be chosen to get there".
So, to use your shopping and bus ticket analogy, if the ends justify the means, going shopping also justifies carjacking.
Malachi, the term "the end justifies the means" is broadly meant to mean "achieving the goal justifies in and of itself any and all actions that may be chosen to get there".
So, to use your shopping and bus ticket analogy, if the ends justify the means, going shopping also justifies carjacking.
What?
Going shopping (the ends) only justifies the means (stealing a car) if whatever (constructed) moral universe you are operating in privileges the act of shopping over whatever ills may be associated with auto theft.
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Malachi, the term "the end justifies the means" is broadly meant to mean "achieving the goal justifies in and of itself any and all actions that may be chosen to get there".
So, to use your shopping and bus ticket analogy, if the ends justify the means, going shopping also justifies carjacking.
Thanks for trying to help me. : )
Here's where I am right now:-
Going shopping justifies buying a bus ticket.
Going shopping does not justify carjacking!
Ergo, sometimes the end justifies the means, and sometimes it doesn't.
Which seems incompatible with the idea that the ends never justify the means!
Where am I going wrong?
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Yah, I think in general, the paladin's code says a big fat "NO!" Not to say a paladin can't do stuff for the greater good, but it may require a fall or atonement. Paladins are still human (in the "fallible" sense), but their code is pretty inflexible.
Don't play a paladin unless you're willing to fall :)
Which seems incompatible with the idea that the ends never justify the means!
This is a statement of strong deontological conviction. The means never need to be justified because only just means are used (such as legally purchasing a ticket). A person who believes in the quoted section would never even think of justifying their actions, because they only pursue just ends with just means (and thus we don't need to talk about it in terms of ends and means).
"The end justifies the means" is in general parlance understood to mean "The (desirable) end justifies (Insert any action here)". I don't think we need to argue about that, do we?
"The end justifies the means" is in general parlance understood to mean "The (desirable) end justifies (Insert any action here)". I don't think we need to argue about that, do we?
I didn't notice anyone doing any such thing.
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Which seems incompatible with the idea that the ends never justify the means!This is a statement of strong deontological conviction. The means never need to be justified because only just means are used (such as legally purchasing a ticket). A person who believes in the quoted section would never even think of justifying their actions, because they only pursue just ends with just means (and thus we don't need to talk about it in terms of ends and means).
This didn't help me much. : /
I have never studied philosophy (you can tell, right?) so some concepts that might be second nature to you are totally unknown to me.
Do you mean that the statement, 'The ends never justify the means' only apply to those with a deontological conviction? In that case, 'never' isn't as absolute as it first appears, since it doesn't apply universally to those with other convictions.
Any chance of using layman-friendly language? I appreciate your efforts! I'm looking forward to getting my head round it, just like I was pleased when I finally understood why a tree falling in a forest does not make a sound if there is no-one there to hear it!
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Which seems incompatible with the idea that the ends never justify the means!This is a statement of strong deontological conviction. The means never need to be justified because only just means are used (such as legally purchasing a ticket). A person who believes in the quoted section would never even think of justifying their actions, because they only pursue just ends with just means (and thus we don't need to talk about it in terms of ends and means).This didn't help me much. : /
I have never studied philosophy (you can tell, right?) so some concepts that might be second nature to you are totally unknown to me.
Do you mean that the statement, 'The ends never justify the means' only apply to those with a deontological conviction? In that case, 'never' isn't as absolute as it first appears, since it doesn't apply universally to those with other convictions.
Any chance of using layman-friendly language? I appreciate your efforts! I'm looking forward to getting my head round it, just like I was pleased when I finally understood why a tree falling in a forest does not make a sound if there is no-one there to hear it!
Ok, so let's say Bob believes that the ends never justify the means. That means that, for whatever goal Bob wants to achieve, he cannot use that goal to justify his actions.
Let's say Bob wants to stop World War II. He builds a time machine and goes to late 1890s Austria and finds the baby Hitler in a crib. Bob believes murdering the innocent is wrong. Thus, killing the baby Hitler is wrong because the baby Hitler is innocent.
Jeff the utilitarian would have no problem killing baby Hitler (assuming he is somehow secure this act will not result in a worse future; that's unrelated to this moral issue) because he believes that - even if the act of killing a baby is repugnant to him - he knows he is actually doing something good (saving millions of lives).
So, back to Bob standing over the crib of the baby Hitler. Since he can't kill him, he instead uses actions which he believes are just in and of themselves. He gets hired as the butler, teaches baby Hitler morality and tries to be a good role model. None of those actions are wrong and, in fact, all would probably be considered positive (good) moral acts in most ethical systems.
So, holding that the "the ends never justify the means" means you can never use whatever good you think you are doing to justify 'bad' actions. All your actions will either be good or morally neutral to begin with.
I'm not sure if that made it any clearer, it is getting late here.
The problem with this example (saving the world by killing an infant) is this: as a DM I think you should try to avoid this challanges for a paladin PC. IMHO the paladin MUST kill the infant if he cant find another way to save the world BUT i agree with the idea that "the end justifies the means" it's far from the paladin concept..
But this doesnt mean that you (or your pcs) should play the lawful (and boring) stupid paladin pc.. Paladins are more than this i think.
There isnt a general rule and we can speak here a lot, but the last word is your gm's one.. so if you are a player speak with your gm about his concept of paladin (you can find good things in Bodhi's Guide to the Optimal Paladin & Antipaladin).. If you are the GM with a paladin PC i suggest you to avoid this situation for a paladin pc, try to give him a third way to save the world.
fast answer "the end justifies the means"?? (in a paladin point of view)
I think NO, but sometimes, with a lot of "IF", it could :)
I quote Whale Cancer
"The end justifies the means" is in general parlance understood to mean "The (desirable) end justifies (Insert any action here)". I don't think we need to argue about that, do we?I didn't notice anyone doing any such thing.
Lol, well, there is disagreement above about what the phrase means, and when a disagreement uses discourse to express itself, that's what I call an argument :) just thought it was a pretty straightforward concept myself. Perhaps I was wrong.
Now, paladins and their code... That we should argue about!
Good stuff, then...
I'm not sure if that made it any clearer, it is getting late here.
Nope, that's about perfect I reckon.
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Malachi, the term "the end justifies the means" is broadly meant to mean "achieving the goal justifies in and of itself any and all actions that may be chosen to get there".
So, to use your shopping and bus ticket analogy, if the ends justify the means, going shopping also justifies carjacking.
Too narrow a view. Someone having their car stolen is also a result in that situation. one that would outweigh shopping.
Whale Cancer gave a good explanation of the phrase.
Whale Cancer's response is definitely a good one: I was in a rush when responding, and should have thought the moral implications of my example through.
A better version is this: Your spouse is in labor, there are complications, her and the baby are at risk, you have no car, the ambulance cannot get to you soon enough to do any good. There is a bus available that can get you to the hospital, you also have a gun and can carjack someone. If the ends justify the means, carjacking is a reasonable action. If not, buy a bus ticket. A Paladin will always buy a bus ticket.
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Thank you all for your thoughts.
I tried to boil the question down to its simplest element.
Interestingly enough, I just finished watching the movie "Looper". I enjoyed the movie. The main protagonist, while no paladin faced a
I suppose it is the "Jack Boer" question of the 24 series: do the ends justify the means? For Jack Boer, he is faced with a set of terrible choices....and I would like to assume he does the best he can. But then the purpose of 24 series is to muddy the waters when it comes to a moral choice.
So for a paladin, which is one of the few classes where right and wrong is much lest morally relative, and much more morally absolute......although not completely, I thought it was a good class for which to ask the simple question
For a paladin do the ends justify the means?
I think the answer is fairly simple: no.
I would think for the "Hitler" dilemma, the paladin would try to find another way.....a paladin would have faith in the potential goodness of people and try to see the child is raised by good people, etc.
"Cases where a PC cannot help but fall are equivalent to instances where a PC cannot possibly evade death or some other highly undesirable result through any possible action of their own - highly immature and inappropriate conduct for a DM." I agree with what Shadowdweller just said.
Whale cancer thank you for summing things up.
Thank you all for your thoughts, and please keep them coming.
"Cases where a PC cannot help but fall are equivalent to instances where a PC cannot possibly evade death or some other highly undesirable result through any possible action of their own - highly immature and inappropriate conduct for a DM." I agree with what Shadowdweller just said.
Yep. Unless...
I'm doing a whole different sort of colluding with one of my players at the moment, but both of our focus is on making sure everyone's still having at least as good a time and as much of the limelight as they otherwise would. It helps that we're all close friends, very into the story, and very conscious of each others' feelings - I'd never try the colluding stunt with acquaintances.
I think the trick is making these sorts of things very much minor sidelines to the main plot of the party's narrative. The extreme case of "paladin kills baby or world ends" is obviously far too big for this kind of thing - I just threw it out there as a totally extreme example.
If you're going to test a paladin's code, extreme caution is required, both with the pally player's feelings, and with making sure the other players get their "screen time".
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My choice would be this on the baby sacrifice issue: "Everyone and everything dies, even gods. If this world must die must die, then let it die with one man saying, 'I will not do this.' There are many worse deaths. Let us chose a moral one."
This reminds of that time...
At convention play in the early 90s. The player who had drawn, at random, the Paladin character to play felt as though a peasant was impeding the groups' progress. He surreptitiously dropped a coin on the floor of the peasant's hut. "Hey, is that a copper piece?" Next you thing you know the paladin caved in the back of the peasant's skull. Everyone wondered what the heck just happened.
"But it says on my character sheet that 'The ends justify the means."
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So, holding that the "the ends never justify the means" means you can never use whatever good you think you are doing to justify 'bad' actions. All your actions will either be good or morally neutral to begin with.
I'm not sure if that made it any clearer, it is getting late here.
I've just woken up, and this explanation helps.
'Killing Hitler as a baby' is such a famous example because it doesn't have an obviously 'right' answer, so is of limited use when testing the phrase, 'the ends never justify the means'.
Lets try another example used recently on another paladin thread; one which you alluded to when describig Kant's philosophy. (See! I was listening!)
Anne Frank & family in the attic, nazis at the door asking paladin who owns the house if there are any jews in the attick. Lying is wrong. Letting the nazis, in fact aiding and abetting them to, murder them is much, much more wrong!
Killing is wrong, but a paladin is a killer for his god! If the paladin allows the paladin to Smite Evil, and by definition he does, then telling fibs to said evil won't be immoral in the circumstance where fighting a certainly losing battle won't defeat the evil but telling a fib will.
And if we're really testing that phrase, 'never' is a universal term, but you're definition above is about justifying 'bad' actions. Sometimes both the ends and the means are good! Where does that leave 'that' phrase?
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It's shorthand. As I said earlier, it is used as a method to explain why a particular course of action is "good", because the method chosen does not matter provided that the overall moral outcome is "good".
To a Paladin "the end justifies the means" is never a reason to perform any action. That particular bit of rationalisation has zero place in a Paladin's world view.
Yes, there are actions whereby the end and the means are both "good", but those actions do not require any level of justification: they are simply correct, from the Paladin's point of view. It is only when a good "observer" (technically the Paladin's deity or philosophy, or whatever grants him his powers, depending on the campaign setting) has to be reasoned with that "the end justifies the means" comes up as a possible explanation. The general consensus seems to be that the Paladin should never need to fall back on that particular rationalisation, because it is not in his character to use it as an excuse for his actions.
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The Doctor is hardly a good reference for moral behavior. Dude is either running from responsibility ot barely staving off declarations of godhood. (Incidentally, my favorite is McCoy).
The Hitler as a baby thing actually has an answer, a rather simple answer. The child is not a moral actor and has not conducted the actions for which he would be executed.
This ties back a bit to the ontological side of things, but Evil (despite what years of DnD have tried to delude us into thinking) is not a positive force. Its most consistantly defined as 'privation,' a lack where they should be something.
Murder is killing without justification. Lust is sexual congress without respect or love, and so on. Pure Evil is just a giant pile of nothing. In Christianity even Satan himself is just a rotten angel.
"The ends justify the means" predicates on a 'nuanced' view of good and evil, which is to say Subjective vs Objective. The Subjective morality arguments tend to be the ones forward by the Anti-Alignmentist side of things based on the whole 'isn't he really being good according to his own belief system ethic' or 'what is love, baby don't hurt me,' thing.
The core idea behind objective morality is that there is a final objective arbiter of good and evil, independant of the individual, independant of interpretation and independant even of the persons awareness. Whether you believe a person is morally culpable for evil actions he performs unwittingly depends on your own personal belief system.
The core of this argument though is this.
Can doing evil, result in good.
Its not a bad argument, its come up before in philosophy and theology. The general answer from a Judeo-Christian standpoint is 'No.' The Christians posit that God can find a way to rectify evil and bring greater good from it, but this is not the ideal. This ties back to the old Lewisian statement that the Redemption was something awe-inspiringly amazing and good, but it would have been better had man never fallen in the first place.
A lot of the doign evil arguments along that line boil down to the broken window fallacy, so lets not walk down that well trodden boulevard with its comments on 'we have true free will' or other things. Its not helpful to the current discussion.
If killing an innocent will save the world.. The trick here is basically boiling down to what construes 'save the world.'
The world being destroyed is not an intrinsic evil. Death is not usually intrinsically considered a moral evil, Tolkien's world actually viewed it as a gift. Even pagan cultures of yore had a neutral impression of it. Most death gods tend to not be sniggering vampiric jerkasses like Greyhawk's Nerull, but rather stoney faced bueracrats like in the Chinese Celestial Bueracracy, or dour regals like the Babylonian Nergal (who wasnt any more crazy or evil then the rest of that cadre of psychopaths in that pantheon).
Killing someone to prevent what is a neutral state of being is not a good thing. Killing a person to sustain the lives of dozens, thousands or millions is not a moral action as in this case, the person is not the one endangering them. Staying alive is not endangering their survival. What you need to remember, is they're all going to die eventually anyway, now you're just adding murder to the equation.
Similarly 'I kill him so future generations might...' is morally indefensible as tomorrow the world might be erradicated, those future generations never materialize and the motivation shown to be hollow.
A paladin kills when its appropriate, necessary and just to do so. Not when utilitarian engineers deign it. The trick with paladins is the DM has to establish what his world's morality is, and if he wants to play fast and loose with subjective stuff, he's better off not just not using alignment, but paladins as well.
If doing what is right causes kingdoms to fall, worlds to be unmade and so on..the paladin does whats right, because that is right. Right is not 'the best for the majority of people involved.'
Good is not defined democratically.
And again, apologies for rambling.
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[Edit: The above poster basically said what I was writing, and far more eloquently. Excellent argument.]
In general parlance, the term "the ends justify the means" is interpreted to mean that it's OK to do something that's immoal ("evil" in game terms) in the name of the greater good. It's the classic excuse of tyrants and the corrupt throughtout history-- both real-world and in fiction.
So, I will agree with the poster that said, "The ends never justify the means."
I hold that it is against the concept of "good" to take an immoral action, even if doing so would have a beneficial outcome. There are always alternatives that don't require you to check your morality at the door. In a game, if a GM was regularly forcing "damned if you do, damned if you don't" no-win moral situations on me, then I'd quit the game.
As a GM, I hold anyone with a professed "Good" alignment to the same standards as a paladin. Take evil actions and you jeopardize your good alignment, regardless of your motivation or the expected overall outcome.
Because the ends DON'T justify the means. The means must stand on their own merits.
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And if we're really testing that phrase, 'never' is a universal term, but you're definition above is about justifying 'bad' actions. Sometimes both the ends and the means are good! Where does that leave 'that' phrase?
Then the ends would not justify the means, because the means justify themselves.
They are both already justified on their own merits, and there is no need for one to justify the other.
Perhaps the oldest debate in the history of philosophy is whether the ends justifies the means.
The argument that the ends justifies the means is one that assumes you can balance doing 'bad' things now if your actions mean more 'good' things later.
The argument that the ends don't justify the means is one that assumes that bad actions have their own moral consequences and committing a "bad" act is bad no matter the outcome.
Religions frequently take the second moral path and explain it by saying that free will determines the moral consequences of the soul, and what happens in the physical world is inconsequential compared to what happens in the spiritual world. So murdering baby Hitler is still an evil act and will get you sent to hell because the deaths of millions of people is not relevant to the fundamental purpose of the universe, which is to allow people to exercise free will so that God can determine who is worthy to join him in heaven.
Non-religious arguments against "the ends justifies the means" typically take a "slippery slope" perspective and point out that once someone justifies their actions by claiming that they are performing a "greater good" there really is no limit to the evil they can rationalize, and so it is best just to not allow the first step down that slope, even if the consequences seem dire.
The vast majority of people accept that there is some balance, or threshold where an "evil act" could be justified in pursuit of a "greater good". A common scenario is to ask whether it is justified to torture a terrorist to learn the location of a ticking nuclear bomb buried in the city somewhere. Is it OK to rip off a few fingernails if you save ten million lives?
Well, in the end the question is how absolutely certain you can be that the ends actually do justify the means. And in general that is a very, very difficult question to answer, and a dozen people given the same scenario are not likely to all agree.
UPDATE: Forgot to link this back to the paladin. Paladins are fundamentally religious and are based on the mindset that free will and choices are what matters, because they will be judged based on their god's desires, not based on mortal outcomes.
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Anne Frank & family in the attic, nazis at the door asking paladin who owns the house if there are any jews in the attick. Lying is wrong.
I see--this is the first problem. Lying is not wrong in an of itself. Lying is only wrong when the person you lied to deserves the truth (the ends can make otherwise neutral means wrong, even though they can't make evil means good). Nazis looking to kill someone do not deserve the truth.
Killing is wrong, but a paladin is a killer for his god!
Again, Killing is not wrong. Murder is wrong. Killing in many circumstances is perfectly fine--even good. Killing in self defense or in the defense of others or killing during a Just War are ok.
That's the problem you're having, I think--you're thinking that there's no nuance in what the "means" are. "Lying" and "killing" are neutral actions. There's no need for justification. Murder is evil, and no ends justify that means.
And if we're really testing that phrase, 'never' is a universal term, but you're definition above is about justifying 'bad' actions. Sometimes both the ends and the means are good! Where does that leave 'that' phrase?
That leaves the phrase just fine, because when the means are good, there's no need for justification.
You can't murder people (especially babies!), you can't torture people, you can't abuse the helpless, etc.
For further clarification, you are not responsible for the actions of others, but you are responsible for your own. You cannot murder baby Hitler because murdering is wrong, and it's not ok to do it because you're saving millions of lives later. For one, you don't actually know which theory of time travel is true--if it's not the Great Man theory, killing Hitler does nothing to stop the Holocaust. Plus, not killing him even though you have the opportunity does not make you responsible for the genocide he committed later.
Another high profile dilemma like this is the "Joker Dilemma" at the end of Dark Knight. Both boats (full of people) have a switch to blow up the other boat--if you blow up the other boat, your boat lives. If neither blows up the other, both boats blow up.
The people in the movie actually "solved it" correctly. You can't blow up the other boat--it's not moral to claim that doing so would save more lives overall because if you don't do it both boats blow.
You are not responsible for killing both boats of people if you don't flip the switch--someone else did that and gave you a false choice. You are responsible, however, if you blow up the other boat. You did do that.
See, the trick is, you can't know if the one who gave you the choice is a madman (he was), or if he'll even keep his word. You don't know if the switch blows up both boats, if he won't follow through on his threat to blow both up, or if he'll blow yours up after you blow theirs anyway. You can only control your own actions and you are only responsible for your own actions.