When Do Ends Justify Means?

We liberals are funny people. Sometimes we are soft to denounce the terrible actions of others, while finding as many possible actions of our own that can be labeled as being terrible. It is a weakness of ours that the right smells on us and exploits at every turn. Face it; we liberals have a habit towards moral relativism that is something we must be aware of and work against all the time.

At the same time, the very same right loves to talk about absolute truths of right and wrong until those truths are inconvenient. The "Party of Life" ain't so full of points of light when it comes to communists, liberals, terrorists, arabs, scary looking people on the street, or traitors. The list of people they are willing to "waive" absolute truth for includes Americans as well as non-Americans and is long enough to make their Jesus weep. They are not so much moral relativists as situational moralists.

But the reality is that both groups are faced with a serious and difficult question. In a nutshell, what do we do with people who want nothing less than the absolute destruction of Americans (in the world or just in the middle east - does not matter) and relish in the harm and brutality that they can inflict?

The volume on this question is high. With Americans literally being beheaded on TV and our safety in the balance, the answer is hard to calmly come to. BUT IT IS VITAL to remember that volume does not change the nature of the question. The question is absolute (REALLY absolute - not CONVENIENTLY absolute!):

Do the ends justify the means?

Some have answered the question in a simple fashion: the ends are bunk so the means are unjustified. This is answer given by McCain and others who point at the lack of meaningful information gathered by the use of torture. Torture elicits confessions and admissions that are for political ends, not useful in any tactical way. At best we could have Osama on the TV admitting the error of his ways and begging forgiveness of the masses with a bruise on one eye. But does this justify torture?

The problem with this answer is that it begs the question, "If the ends WERE valuable, THEN would any means justify them?" I.E. If pulling out some jihadist’s bowels while he watched elicited the location of a nuclear weapon, then his torture and murder would be ok? By this argument, maybe it would be.

Another group argues that the means cannot be justified because in the end it is we become what we hate. I.E. even if we use the means, and the enemy is destroyed, we have become something else, something worse. The ends of the war move the nation to an end that itself is unacceptable.

The classic problem with this is that if we let the enemy get to far, maybe there will not be a future for us. Would it be better to be dirty or dead, the argument goes. This is an easy argument to make, but only if the enemy really has the capacity to inflict this kind of end on us. Do they have thousands of nukes pointed at us? No? Hmm...

And yet another says that the ends justify the means because in their means, they have absolved us of ours. In other words, they lose rights to the Geneva Convention when they act as stateless terrorists. They lose their American rights the first day at the Pakistani Jihadi training camp. “They want a war, we will give it to them.”

But this does not hold in any other field. When guards storm a hostage situation where the hostage taker raped a bank teller, they do not hand cuff him, drop their pants and begin the payback. No, there is some sense that our laws hold despite the actions of criminals, terrorists, and even traitors.

So when do the ends justify the means? When are they, even the most extreme ones acceptable? And is their acceptability based on their extremity?

Once at a dinner party, I posed the question, "If you could end all warfare in the Middle East by taking a 4 year old from the dinner table out in the street and putting a bullet through his head, would you?"

Considering the table was full of Israelis and American Jews, this was not as academic a question as you might think.

I posed it in part because I though people were not being absolute in their condemnation of terrorism as well as others being too accepting of the use of inexact munitions in targeting known terrorists.

So, again, do the ends justify the means?

The first group I mentioned might say that children aught not be killed, or even risked since we cannot be sure that we will get to the target we want. But what if we were sure the bad guy was in the car with his family? Would it be worth it? What if he was alone, but on a crowded street? If the end is that tantalizing, does the justification come only with the accuracy of the missile or the information gleamed from the water boarding?

The second group has its own problems. If a single life could stop the horror, isn't that easy math? Really. Doesn't the father lose the right for his kid’s safety if he chooses the life of terror? Hell, won't the kid just grow up to be a terrorist anyways? What if just a few slaps, or even just the threat of a visit to room 101 could save our own kids? How could you not?

The last group ends with the moved end point. Once we do this, we cannot be who we were before. But, so what? I mean, we all weep for the loss of the Indian nations, but we are glad to be the ones running the country, right? Hey, a little sin with a whole lot of life is survivable, ain't it?

So, finally, does the ends justify the means? Are there absolutes in this world anymore, or are we all just relativists, either the moral relativists or situational moralists? Are we all just confused and lost? Have we already lost who we were, never really having any strong moral backbones to begin with?

So I leave you with the question: You have the gun, you have the 4 year old, and peace could be possible.

Do the ends justify the means?

How do you know?