Does the end justify the means?

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Originally Posted by Oniw17

So if patient A and his family are down to save the two others, and A's not brain dead, you don't do it? Why not? Even if B is one of your parents and C is one of your children?

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If the patient is not a brain death .. then they r alive.. So we can't end his life.and doctors won't.. ! I don't know.. coz maybe he is breathing and maybe coz we don't recognize them as dead man , then how can we donate his body.. Its like you wanna end someone to let another live.. That is not our choice to make.. Dunno.
But am sure that even if my child would need it .. or any relative . I wouldn't ask them to end a life of someone in order to get an organ . Ethically maybe i don't find it appropriate.

For me, the end never justifies the means because it's a lazy way to think and it puts our humanity in jeopardy. Such a statement just means that I wasn't smart enough to think of an alternative. There's always another way. Communicate to the town's people that there's a plane about to hit their block and tell them to run (if you have a weapon capable of shooting down the plane then surely you have a radio). Find an operation that gives both twins a chance at life, even at reduced odds of success. Find another donor, scour Emergency rooms like a vulture. Tell the gestapo that you're the spy and jump him so that he kills you before he has a chance to ask questions.

It might be idealistic, but I'm willing to give it a try anyway. You can see where "the end justifies the means" mindsets have led people in the past, and it's never good. Where do you draw the line? No, if you find yourself in that situation then think harder and come up with something better.

Do the ends justify the means? It depends on how the moral calculus comes out at the end of the day. If the good ends are worth, say, 100 "virtue" points, and all the bad things you did during the "means" phase was worth -200 virtue points, then at the end of the day you are 100 points in the hole, so in this case, no. So the answer to this question is, Not always. The proper question to ask when confronted with one of these situations is: Do the ends outweigh the means? If yes then do it, if not then don't. But it is a mistake to give special weight to the ends just because they come later in time.

Suppose that a beautiful Russian spy has secret knowledge. The only way to save the world is to seduce her and trick her into revealing the secret. However, in order to obtain this vital knowledge, you would have to make love to Natasha using lies, deceit, and secret sex tricks known only to the CIA.

As horrible as this would be for me, I'd do it.

The end does justify the means. Everything else creates unnecessary suffering.

The plane would have to be shot down (let's assume it's flown by terrorists so the scenario becomes more plausible).

It really does depend on the age of the twins. If they're infants, let the parents decide. Unless they suffer for some reason, and the parents 'want' them to keep suffering, in that case ignore the parents and stop the suffering, even if it results in the death of one. (There will probably legal problems with that, but I'm arguing ethics only here)

Kidney transplant: You do need consent, even for utilitarian reasons. If patients in hospitals are killed against their will, people will become afraid of hospitals, and the policy would have overall implications that are much worse than two deaths. However, the doctors should definitely inform the patient objectively about the situation and ask the dreaded question.

And yeah, in extreme circumstances, indirectly endangering one person to save ten is better.

About 'certainty': People who don't understand statistics might be tempted to dismiss any intrusive, damaging action if the end result is not to 100% predictable. That's irrational, ideally one just adds the certainty levels to the whole prediction. If 1 million people have a 70% chance of dying (and the other 30% they all live), then that equals, on average, 700'000 deaths, so shoot down that plane!

Yet the reason of some people's revulsion against 'ends justify means' thinking are not that bad. 'Greater good' calculations are indeed often dangerous. Utopia visions like Communism risked the lifes of millions for a noble goal, the problem: the planned society doesn't work. It's the same with extremist suicide bombers, they have a highly noble goal, but since their facts are wrong it ends in disaster. So one should better make sure to be right about the facts, 'I didn't know about that' doesn't count as an excuse when one makes ends justify the means decisions.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

About 'certainty': People who don't understand statistics might be tempted to dismiss any intrusive, damaging action if the end result is not to 100% predictable. That's irrational, ideally one just adds the certainty levels to the whole prediction. If 1 million people have a 70% chance of dying (and the other 30% they all live), then that equals, on average, 700'000 deaths, so shoot down that plane!

Yet the reason of some people's revulsion against 'ends justify means' thinking are not that bad. 'Greater good' calculations are indeed often dangerous. Utopia visions like Communism risked the lifes of millions for a noble goal, the problem: the planned society doesn't work. It's the same with extremist suicide bombers, they have a highly noble goal, but since their facts are wrong it ends in disaster. So one should better make sure to be right about the facts, 'I didn't know about that' doesn't count as an excuse when one makes ends justify the means decisions.

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I agree with the first paragraph. But doesn't the second paragraph contradict the first? We can never "make sure to be right about the facts," that is, have 100% certainty that the ends we envision are what will in fact happen. The mistake the Communists made was assigning 100% probability to the outcome "ideal society," when in fact it was less than this. That is, they did an improper calculation.

And, even if they had done it correctly (assuming this is possible lol), it may have been that it came out with net positive virtue points. So, the revolution was the right thing to do then, even if it ultimately failed. It's like gambling from the casino's point of view: things are biased in their favor, so the "expected value" of each slot machine crank is positive (for them)--but, they could lose and have to pay out.

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Originally Posted by Baudolina

I agree with the first paragraph. But doesn't the second paragraph contradict the first? We can never "make sure to be right about the facts," that is, have 100% certainty that the ends we envision are what will in fact happen. The mistake the Communists made was assigning 100% probability to the outcome "ideal society," when in fact it was less than this. That is, they did an improper calculation.

And, even if they had done it correctly (assuming this is possible lol), it may have been that it came out with net positive virtue points. So, the revolution was the right thing to do then, even if it ultimately failed. It's like gambling from the casino's point of view: things are biased in their favor, so the "expected value" of each slot machine crank is positive (for them)--but, they could lose and have to pay out.

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Gambling is the perfect analogy, variance evens out eventually and the right decisions pay off in the long run. The contradiction is only superficial because there's nothing impossible about being right IN PRINCIPLE. Of course, practically, people do have biases and wrong world views, but since our goal is to act ethically, and since a huge component of that is to be well informed about issues regarding human nature and human well-being, we should just try to educate ourself in philosophy, science, and whatever else has got something to do with it.

One important future issue where utilitarian reasoning clashes with common sense intuitions is 'transhumanism', the artificial improvement of the human genome. If we can make people happier, healthier, more balanced, more intelligent, less aggressive and all that, why not do it? Prohibiting this would cause a huge amount of unnecessary suffering, yet for some reason many people are appalled by the mere thought of it. There might be side effects, sure, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss the idea a priori. A lot of research into these subjects will have to be done, and eventually people will reach an informed conclusion. By the way, don't think of 'Brave New World' right now, there are much smarter ways to improve human nature, ones that actually produce fulfilling happiness, not some drug induced numbness..

The hardest question in my opinion deals with the value of democracy. If the experts agree that some policy is feasible, and the uneducated public is against it, who wins? While I do think the danger of upheavals, violence and simple angryness of the public (or dictatorship on the other side) is something to be weighed into the equation, I'm not sure whether we should allow such matters to be decided democratically. I mean, people vote against genetically engineered food production, thereby condemning hundreds of millions of starving Africans to death which could be saved by more efficient agriculture. How many deaths are justifiable in the name of democracy? What about patients whose life could be saved by transplants, but since the country doesn't allow stem-cell research they'll die?

In the end, it's always a matter of discussion and rational arguments. While there might not always be one best solution (after all, it's possible that two actions are about equally bad / good), there definitely are some actions that enhance people's (or animals, let's not be speciesist) well-being (meet their preferences) and others that diminish it. And if whoever makes the decisions also presents a well-reasoned and peer-reviewed argumentation, what else could there be wrong with it?

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

What about patients whose life could be saved by transplants, but since the country doesn't allow stem-cell research they'll die?

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I hate to belabor the obvious, but they'll die if their country does allow stem cell research, too.

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In the end, it's always a matter of discussion and rational arguments. While there might not always be one best solution (after all, it's possible that two actions are about equally bad / good), there definitely are some actions that enhance people's (or animals, let's not be speciesist) well-being (meet their preferences) and others that diminish it. And if whoever makes the decisions also presents a well-reasoned and peer-reviewed argumentation, what else could there be wrong with it

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Rational arguments rarely settle any arguments about morality. That's because the most desirable outcome is one of the key matters for debate. There's no "right" or "wrong" to what people see as a desirable outcome, although there may be more effective and less effective ways of attaining said outcome. Which outcome we prefer is a matter of taste, just like which novel we prefer.


As for 'what else could be wrong with it" -- everything!!! Peer-reviewed? Why is peer-reviewed argumentation of any value in such matters as these? I'll grant that peer-review is reasonable in cases where non-experts don't have the background to judge an argument (say in sub atomic physics) -- but that's not the case here.

@Dodo: Just want to say I am very sympathetic to your views on GM foods and transhumanism.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

One important future issue where utilitarian reasoning clashes with common sense intuitions is 'transhumanism', the artificial improvement of the human genome. If we can make people happier, healthier, more balanced, more intelligent, less aggressive and all that, why not do it? Prohibiting this would cause a huge amount of unnecessary suffering, yet for some reason many people are appalled by the mere thought of it. There might be side effects, sure, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss the idea a priori. A lot of research into these subjects will have to be done, and eventually people will reach an informed conclusion. By the way, don't think of 'Brave New World' right now, there are much smarter ways to improve human nature, ones that actually produce fulfilling happiness, not some drug induced numbness..

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Who would choose to become less aggressive? Some people with anger management issues, I'd guess. But not all of them. Out of the rest of us, who would go for it? And who would choose it for their children?

More balanced? Again, there might be some extreme cases, but when you start talking about changing the genome, the first thing that comes to mind is changes before birth, and I don't see how anyone could presume to promote policies (or even commonly chosen options) that would involve lots of parents changing genes of their (perhaps yet to be born) children--not when it simply comes to making them 'more balanced'.

To be clear here, I'm fine with fixing some extreme genetic problem, like one that might make Lou Gherig's disease 90% likely or whatever. But to make someone less aggressive? To make them more balanced? Those would have to be some pretty rare and extreme genes doing crazy stuff. And Transhumanism isn't just about helping those rare extreme cases. A lot of the Transhumanist stuff is about the wide and serious transformation of humanity. And it seems like a movement towards homogenization, some sort of set of ideals, and my guess is that the set of ideals they are going to be shooting for is going to largely consist of things that some certain people--some scientists, futurists, tech 'gurus', businessmen, and people who like to imagine engineering the human species and society--are interested in.

Really, I don't want to appear too much in the opposition, but it is pretty alarming that the list of beneficial changes you chose to present is almost half* about maybe making people less unique and assertive, followed by an "and all of that". I am very skeptical of any behavior modifications that transhumanists might want to effect on humanity at large.


*I'll allow some wiggle room on the "more happy", but maybe I shouldn't. I hope you aren't suggesting some genetic change that would make people more easily convinced that things are OK in their life so that, for example, they could adapt to whatever technologists and tech companies think we should be adapting to--rather than focussing on the design and use of non-invasive tech to create more comfortable surroundings and lifestyles for humans (and better for animals, Nature, etc.).

Don't want to hijack this thread into a transhumanism thread, but I'll briefly state that I personally am simply advocating that people be able to alter their own bodies and psychological nature using whatever technology becomes available. You want wings? You got 'em. You want to be straight and not gay, for whatever reason? OK. I am not saying it is OK for technocrats to alter other pre-existing humans to their liking, or to tinker with the DNA of other people's children.

How about this: Someone else wants to have increased intelligence and enough stamina to be able to work 21 hours per day, at the job that you (or your spouse) love and are best at.

However, this genetic modification will reduce the recipient's sense of humor by 30% and cause them to care significantly less than they normally would about spending time with friends and family. This hypothetical other person won't mind the trade-off, because they don't have a spouse, and just want the money (from your job).

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

Rational arguments rarely settle any arguments about morality. That's because the most desirable outcome is one of the key matters for debate. There's no "right" or "wrong" to what people see as a desirable outcome, although there may be more effective and less effective ways of attaining said outcome. Which outcome we prefer is a matter of taste, just like which novel we prefer.

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I don't think so. The whole concept of 'ethics' comes from the realization that other people also have a 'self', they too have interests and the capability to suffer. Ethics takes on an objective perspective, weighing the interests of all involved. While you certainly can't derive ethics from scratch (as in 'cogito ergo sum'), you can formulate nearly tautological axioms and then base the rest of the reasoning on them (as in mathematics). I must say I've never met anyone that objects to the goal of promoting well-being. Even people in favor of deontological ethics ultimately justify their choice with utilitarian reasons; where else would the maximes come from (with the exception of theological ethics of course)?

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Originally Posted by Ecurb

As for 'what else could be wrong with it" -- everything!!! Peer-reviewed? Why is peer-reviewed argumentation of any value in such matters as these? I'll grant that peer-review is reasonable in cases where non-experts don't have the background to judge an argument (say in sub atomic physics) -- but that's not the case here.

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Why can't there be ethical experts? Ethical geniuses? Once the basic axioms are defined (and as I said most reasonable people actually do agree on them), everything else is just a matter of finding the conclusions. And some people happen to be better at this than others for various reasons including intelligence, education and the capacity to empathize with others. If I make that statement about math, biology or physics, people would agree, so why does it suddenly differ because the issue is morality?

To prevent misunderstandings, I'm not saying such experts would be 'better' people (in a moral sense). It's about the theoretical reasoning BEHIND morality, about justifying certain policies or rules, or arguing against them. It's ethical theory, not applied morality. The people might not even 'live what they preach' in that sense, they might be nasty hypocrites. This isn't about 'good-heartedness'.

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Originally Posted by billl

More balanced? Again, there might be some extreme cases, but when you start talking about changing the genome, the first thing that comes to mind is changes before birth, and I don't see how anyone could presume to promote policies (or even commonly chosen options) that would involve lots of parents changing genes of their (perhaps yet to be born) children--not when it simply comes to making them 'more balanced'.

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There's nothing special about genes, there aren't any bad consequences if we modify them INTELLIGENTLY. At least not that I know of. And yes, I'm mostly talking about yet to be born children. While I don't see anything wrong with people wanting to change their own character, I can imagine that people wouldn't really want it because they can't imagine themselves 'being' otherwise. Are they right to not want it? Maybe not, but if we focus on babies we circumvent that peculiarity. Additionally, changes in living humans would have to be implemented in the brain rather than in the genes, and that would probably be harder and less predictable.

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Originally Posted by billl

To be clear here, I'm fine with fixing some extreme genetic problem, like one that might make Lou Gherig's disease 90% likely or whatever. But to make someone less aggressive? To make them more balanced? Those would have to be some pretty rare and extreme genes doing crazy stuff. And Transhumanism isn't just about helping those rare extreme cases. A lot of the Transhumanist stuff is about the wide and serious transformation of humanity. And it seems like a movement towards homogenization, some sort of set of ideals, and my guess is that the set of ideals they are going to be shooting for is going to largely consist of things that some certain people--some scientists, futurists, tech 'gurus', businessmen, and people who like to imagine engineering the human species and society--are interested in.

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You raise important objections. But let me point out that your argument goes against specifics, not the general idea. My premise is that transhumanism is good if it makes people happier (the other attributes were my momentary and imperfect guess of what would contribute towards that). What exactly that is is an empric question. If the changes don't make people happier overall, then they're not what transhumanists want after all! Concerning homogenization, diversity is okay, but not by all means, and also not simply by virtue of itself. If we get rid of a lot of unpleasant character traits we won't miss them in people. It goes without saying that a lot of research on 'happiness' needs to be done first, and on the genes and their effects of course. This is a long-term project. And by the way I forgot possibly the most important goal: make people live longer, significantly. Death causes a lot of suffering, why should we simply accept that?

One objection towards the 'abolition of suffering' is that some people insist that suffering is important. I myself am skeptical about this aspect, and intuitively I don't agree with the abolitionists who want to abolish all suffering. To put it in the words of Emily Dickinson 'what is love -- without memorial mold'. But here again, the premise is that the people modifying the genes know what they're doing, and they'll do so intelligently. The goal is not to create a species of mindless pleasure machines.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

There's nothing special about genes, there aren't any bad consequences if we modify them INTELLIGENTLY. At least not that I know of. And yes, I'm mostly talking about yet to be born children. While I don't see anything wrong with people wanting to change their own character, I can imagine that people wouldn't really want it because they can't imagine themselves 'being' otherwise. Are they right to not want it? Maybe not, but if we focus on babies we circumvent that peculiarity. Additionally, changes in living humans would have to be implemented in the brain rather than in the genes, and that would probably be harder and less predictable.

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I want to point out that I didn't anywhere raise objections to the intelligent modification of genes, so I'd like to share in any rhetorical profits that stem from taking that position. And I'd like to again say that genetically changing one's character might seem like a good idea for people in certain extreme circumstances, But I still think you are portraying those others who wouldn't jump on the behavior-modification bandwagon unfairly. (Perhaps you mistyped with that "probably not"?) If you are indeed inclined to believe that people would do best to make the changes, I want to point out that you seem to be struggling to envision what these changes might amount to.

We can take faith in empiricism to deliver best results and provide guidance--but we have to know what we're looking for, as ECurb pointed out earlier, and simply asserting that you've got confidence in the whole thing isn't enough to counter other people's viewpoints and experience looking at these things. I think that this discussion (and countless others in various places) should be enough to show that humans are varied, and have differing ideas about "well-being" and things like that. Saying that people would all want to promote well-being can buttress your position only if we would all ever agree on what it would be in regards to behavior modification on a very large scale. There's a personality test thread that's been popping up on LitNet recently, and it might be useful to take a look at when considering this issue. At the risk of being glib (but to still, maybe, get across the basic gist) the only way to get real agreement on this behavior modification thing seems to be the artificial consolidation of all of us into one category (perhaps the one Ray Kurzweil fits in?) or to leave us as we are (some outgoing, some sensitive to assertive types, some intuitive, some introspective, some very sociable, etc.) and just *maybe* use the new genetics-based techniques to take care of some small number that we've traditionally regarded as severely mentally ill. I really can't see a move to genetically modify behavior in large numbers of us--even (especially!?!) gestating infants--catching on at all.

Regarding the point about this genetic behavior-modification being applied predominantly to children: I want to point out that it doesn't dispense with this whole issue at all. Those children would have parents, and they'd have an interest in their children's future, and I don't think they'd too often be choosing a lot of the things that the empiricists might be pushing on them. We can say that they would be "happier". What does that mean, though? By whose metrics, and compared to what? All we're left with is the same changes the parents might object to according to their own values, or the empiricists that are trying to impose some sort of broad outcome that they can measure and describe with their imperfect techniques. If you spend some time in a different culture, you'll eventually be surprised by cases in which people commonly find comfort and happiness in (for us) surprising behaviors and attitudes. The idea that empiricists will decide on much of anything universal that humanity doesn't already have a handle on seems doubtful, and the reductionist nature of the enterprise is plenty cause for concern.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

You raise important objections. But let me point out that your argument goes against specifics, not the general idea. My premise is that transhumanism is good if it makes people happier (the other attributes were my momentary and imperfect guess of what would contribute towards that). What exactly that is is an empric question. If the changes don't make people happier overall, then they're not what transhumanists want after all! Concerning homogenization, diversity is okay, but not by all means, and also not simply by virtue of itself. If we get rid of a lot of unpleasant character traits we won't miss them in people. It goes without saying that a lot of research on 'happiness' needs to be done first, and on the genes and their effects of course. This is a long-term project.

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I don't think my argument (regarding the arbitrary set of values and homogenization) was against specifics, although I did use two examples of behavior (that you had introduced) early on in that quote you selected. Skipping over a return to the issue of happiness experiments, you next offer a sort of defense of homogenization. I think it is indeed useful when one wants to start engineering things and deciding how everything is going to work out. Of course, weeding out the mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and so on would seem like a good idea (and we already realize that such things should be treated, and our medical field reflects this). Beyond that sort of thing, what negative behaviors would you suggest we get rid of? And why nip them in the bud when we might be able to prune them into something beautiful or interesting, as we so often have and still do?

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

And by the way I forgot possibly the most important goal: make people live longer, significantly. Death causes a lot of suffering, why should we simply accept that?

One objection towards the 'abolition of suffering' is that some people insist that suffering is important. I myself am skeptical about this aspect, and intuitively I don't agree with the abolitionists who want to abolish all suffering. To put it in the words of Emily Dickinson 'what is love -- without memorial mold'. But here again, the premise is that the people modifying the genes know what they're doing, and they'll do so intelligently. The goal is not to create a species of mindless pleasure machines.

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Living longer and staying healthy (and having enough food!), great, yes. Maybe we'd all finally relax and think about making more room and try to figure out how to enjoy it, possibly without recourse to artificial behavior modification among infants. Maybe not, though--really, we probably should work on some other things before the longevity thing gets too far ahead of us.
Suffering: well of course less of that would be great, all things being equal--but a lot of it, as you note, comes simply as the price of being creatures that are remarkably creative and flexible, that can live on various levels and interact in various ways, and have aspirations, form bonds, and do things that sometimes bring about conflicts within ourselves and with others along the way. Bees have it simpler, right? Everything's standardized. Same answers to the same problems, and not much complaining.

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Originally Posted by billl

How about this: Someone else wants to have increased intelligence and enough stamina to be able to work 21 hours per day, at the job that you (or your spouse) love and are best at.

However, this genetic modification will reduce the recipient's sense of humor by 30% and cause them to care significantly less than they normally would about spending time with friends and family. This hypothetical other person won't mind the trade-off, because they don't have a spouse, and just want the money (from your job).

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This is no different from issues we currently face: some coworker is willing to do what we are not, such as have no life outside of work, and puts the rest of us at a competitve disadvantage. The only difference here is one of scale. I would say this. I may enjoy the job, and it may be what I am best at, however, can I really say I am more entitled to it than this person who is willing to sacrifice so much (including their sense of humor!) to get it? No, I cannot. I believe all I am entitled to is food and shelter. Rather than outlawing human modification because of the increased competition it will cause, let's pass a law giving everyone the right to free food and shelter. BTW I am glad you presented practical problems, rather than saying "That's just wrong and unnatural, etc."