The question, "do the ends justify the means?"

[Angra Mainyu]

Suppose I said, if we do X, then we can achieve y. You might say, just because we can do X, maybe we should step back and ask ourselves if we should. It's not just a moral question on lateral footing as if two topics (morality and results) are sitting side-by-side. There's a sense of hierarchy between the issues.

I don't think the sense of hierarchy is between morality and results, but - if and when there is such sense -, between a moral goal any other goals: in the context of moral argumentation, when there is a conflict between not behaving immorally and something else (e.g., if you do X, you achieve goal Y, but X is immoral), it seems to me it's usually implicitly assumed that not behaving immorally trumps the other goal, even from the perspective of the evaluations of the agent pondering how to behave.

Consider legality versus morality. If an action is immoral and illegal on one hand and immoral yet legal on the other, the latter is further up the scale of admiration (a little, for at least it's legal), and if an action is moral yet illegal versus moral and legal, that latter is even higher still.

I'm not sure what scale of admiration that is. If it's the moral scale, then and immoral and illegal action (say, some trademark violation) may be much further up the moral scale (i.e., much less bad) than an action that is immoral and legal (e.g., in many legal systems, espousal rape).

I'm not sure by "moral" you mean "morally permissible", or "morally obligatory", or "morally praiseworthy". Context suggests "permissible", so I'll go with that, but please clarify.
I don't think that your statement is true. It depends on the case.
For example, if B is convicted to death for apostasy, blasphemy or gay sex, and A takes some very serious personal risk and helps B escape the authorities in order to protect her from such horrific injustice, A's actions are (all other things equal) morally praiseworthy, even if criminal in their legal system. On the other hand, eating a banana because one is slightly hungry and one likes bananas is morally permissible and legal, but not morally praiseworthy.

Legal tends to trump illegal and moral trumps immoral, but in comparing the two, it's the morality (and not the legality) that wins favor. Throw results in the mix. Nothing ever seems to trump the morals of an issue.

I think legal tends to trump illegal because it tends to morally trump it, since breaking the law is usually immoral. But it's easy to find exceptions.

Always at the top seems to be the moral issue. The very notion that the achievement of results can sit above the importance of the moral aspects of an issue is probably mostly universally deniable, and what makes this discussion so problematic is how morality boosts up the moment results have a chance of gaining ground--the flip-flopping from unjustified to justified.

It seems to me if they're weighing them, either they're weighing the morality of the matters, or they're weighing different goals, depending on what an agent values. It seems implicit in moral argumentation that the goal of not behaving immorally trumps the conflicting goals they're talking about.

 

[ronburgundy]

This thread is not about whether or not the means justify the ends. It's about the invoking of the question itself. Results matter! At the same token (I'd concede), it's not untrue that how results occur matter. But, why bring it up? When the results are important, why does it matter how they are achieved? Maybe the ends don't justify the means, but since when does the need for justification trump the need for results? I'd suppose that when the means are more important than the results, justification would matter more than the results, but otherwise, what makes justification a consideration when it's the results and not the means that's more important?

There's this taken-for-granted idea that if the means is wrong, then the means doesn't justify the ends, but why is that so important that it trump the ends? In other words, why not disregard justification in cases where the ends are more important? To put it another way, if the ends are very important, then it just might not matter all that much if the means don't justify the ends unless you can support the notion that justification is necessarily more important than the results.

In a way, morality is (without argument) elevated to a higher hierarchy of human importance. I don't mean to lessen the importance of doing what's right--just looking for the basis for which justification is invoked as necessary. A wrong doer need not attempt to justify his actions if justification itself was not held with such high regard. It also side-steps the retort that one's actions doesn't justify the ends--the response would be, "so what?"

The phrase doesn't imply that the means always have to be "right", just that the outcome must outweigh the any wrongness of the means. Means are important because they are what determine various future outcomes. Means are essentially the procedures and principles upon which the actions that produced the ends were based.
Using a means, justifies and supports future use of those same means and the principles that underlie them. Being principles, they are general and would apply to and determine many other outcomes in many other contexts. Thus, means incorporate other "ends" or outcomes. So, the phrase is essentially saying "Any specific desired outcome is only worth it, if its gains outweigh the sum total negatives of the other future outcomes its means bring about.
IOW, it really just amounts to weighing the pros and cons of an action by considering that any action or procedure winds up indirectly producing many other future outcomes besides the focal one you are trying to achieve in the short term.

This is a rational and intelligent approach to evaluating procedures, even from a selfish and pragmatic view (considering all other means-enabled outcomes relevant to your own goals), or an ethical view (considering those outcomes related to other's welfare and moral principles).

As and example, using authoritarian suppression of speech to achieve the positive outcome of reducing offense to minority groups, inherently justifies the authoritarian suppression of speech in general bases upon the personal tastes of whomever is in majority control. That enables and makes more likely countless negative and very destructive outcomes other than the specific positive one being sought. That makes it stupid and unethical to support censorship of such speech.

 

[fast]

Thank you