Ends and Means

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Many people claim the adage that "the ends justify the means". I think most people who do this use it to justify themselves and rationalize wrongdoing more than it is about the ends. It begins with the logical fallacy that the means proposed will and must lead to the ends espoused and ignores the path taken in order to arrive there. It presupposes that meaning well is all that is necessary for the right ends to occur, regardless of the path or the persons actuating it. Finally it assumes that everything is and must be about the right end. You can think of it sort of as a fallacious argument that it doesn't matter what else you put into a cake as long as it turns out and tastes good.

Like most fallacies, this ignores facts. When people use this cliche, they presuppose that just because the means may lead to the ends that they necessarily will and necessarily must. Yet, every one of us knows people who honestly entered marriages who are now divorced; we know people who started businesses that went bankrupt; we are aware of historical civilizations that no longer exist. Like so many far-reaching plans, the justification for means relies on certain assumptions about facts. Rather than making it on actual data, they do so on data given them by others, on incomplete sets of data, and extrapolate their assumptions beyond the linear range on which the presupposition was made. Just because a thing can work does not necessarily mean that they will, and if they do not then the means are not justified at all.

The other problem with this false premise is that most utopian attitudes rely on participation by other people. Each of the people involved in the idea must make the right decisions to the right degree at the right time in order for things to reach the rosy outcomes the masterminds tell us we can expect. Yet, we know people who made us promises they didn't keep, and each of us knows someone who decided when forced by their parents to do something against their will to stage a rebellion. Thus, they are undermined.

Scriptures about with examples of how this fallacy works. When Gideon whittles down the army to only 300 men, nobody expected him to defeat all of Midia. Nobody attacks a force of vast numerical superiority with such a paltry sum of soldiers and wins, but Gideon did. When Daniel is brought into Nebuchadnezzar's court, the king demands that they eat the "king's portion". The king's men worry when Daniel suggests that they eat pulse instead, the prevailing wisdom predicted that Daniel would be sickly when he came through healthy. When the soldiers came for Christ, Peter cut off a man's ear. Christ told him that it was not God's will, which must have sounded very strange to Peter. The ends of these did not justify the means that men might normally suggest, endorse or enforce, because sometimes the wisdom of men is folly.

Secondly, men often presume that unvirtuous means can create virtuous ends. I know students who think that it's not about what we do in our personal lives but how we treat others. Yet, we know that evil men cannot do things that are good. If they give gifts, they do so grudgingly, and it is counted to them both by history and by heaven as if they retained the gift. The evil that men do lives after them whilst the good is interred with their bones. Rotten vegetables do not make delicious salad. You may do justice to others, but if you do not do justice to yourself then you have wronged the person who is most important to your salvation. If your value in life really is about how you treat people and you abuse yourself, how can you be esteemed a good person? If your value depends on treatment of others but you abuse some and selectively act benificently towards people who reciprocate, what do you more than others?

There must be somewhere a poison that will not affect the taste of things. You may put this into the recipe for a cake without affecting the baking process or the quality of the taste when you finish. However, the poison will eventually kill those who eat the cake. What profit is it to a man to have everything he desires if he cannot enjoy it? When we obtain a thing easily we often esteem it lightly, and when we obtain everything we desire, for what then is there a need to struggle and work and live? The man who has already arrived makes no pains to travel. You cannot cook a cake incorrectly and have a good cake. You cannot do wrong and feel right. It is impossible. It's why people persist in perniciousness and narcotics, because they do not feel right.

As in the first example, scripture abounds with more examples of this. David arranged for Bathsheba's husband to die in battle by having the army withdraw and leave him exposed. If David wanted another wife, all he had to do was ask God for it, and if it was right it would have been done. One of the men Jesus healed was lame from his birth to teach people a lesson. Not all men who are punished with disease are punished because of iniquity, but some are there so we can serve and bless and heal them. When Israel first received Manna, they were warned only to collect what they actually needed. Those who hoarded more found that it rotted in the morning. Greed and judgement did not lead to the virtues people sought. However well they may claim they meant, washing in dirty waters does not make one clean.

Finally, we usually assume that the ends are the point. When we assume that men are supposed to be happy and free and prosperous all the time we deny what God told Adam. After being driven from the garden of Eden, Adam was told the earth would be cursed for his sake, that he would earn his living. You see, Adam already had everything in Eden, but that wasn't the point. Our life is a learning experience, a time to prepare to meet God, to prove who's on the Lord's side. Faith matters more than accomplishment. If the ends justified the means and the means were the point, then why was lucifer evicted from heaven? His plan was to force us all to live perfectly and return us to God's presence. It would have achieved the ends God proposed.

Unfortunately for the central planner, sometimes we are supposed to wander in the Sinai. Sometimes it matters more to learn a lesson than to always have the right answers. When we are blinded by unbroken success as Lincoln said, sometimes we are too proud to pray. When we achieve without understanding, it does not help us to repeat the feat.

Other lessons from scripture illustrate this point. The many visits of Moses to Pharaoh initially made life more difficult for Israel rather than free them. God suffered this so that when Israel stood between Pharaoh and the Red Sea they would be able to remember that they had seen miracles before and rely on them again. Jonah was absolutely furious when the people repented, upset that God knew all along that they would and that his mission was pointless. The story of Jonah isn't about that as much as it was about Jonah's reaction and the lessons of care and love God teaches Jonah and us in how he patiently waits for Jonah to follow His instructions.

Wrote the poet, "to each is given a set of tools, the will to build and a book of rules, and each must make ere life is flown a stumbling block or a stepping stone". As in any exercise involving instructions, proper practice yields results. Practice makes permanent, but only perfect practice makes perfect. I have students who think nothing of cheating on the internet, of cheating on partners, and of cheating themselves who then protest when the same behaviors are turned on them. I know of researchers who lied about results or their actual project in order to fleece benefactors and taxpayers of money to advance their own careers. If they accidentally achieved, they would claim the ends justified the means. When it comes to slavery or war or oppression, they claim they are killing us with kindness without realizing that Shakespeare's use of that phrase is selfish too on Petrucio's behalf. He wants the dowry, which he cannot get without breaking his wife.

Remember that your soul is yours and yours alone for keeping. Whatever justification and rationalizations you may imagine, remember that there is a final accounting wherein only truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth will matter. You cannot say that virtue was inconvenient or that happenstance vindicated your actions when that wasn't actually your purpose as much as an accidental result. At that day the means will matter just as much as the ends if not more, because during the means we affect people, around which this life and the next one really revolve.