Talk:The ends justify the means

Untitled
Think it should be mentioned that this is a paraphrase of a Trotsky quote.

"On the FOX drama 24, CTU Agent Jack Bauer is a firm believer in this philosophy." —Does referencing a fictional character really have a place in this article? What's the point?


 * I agree, no need to put in a fox drama 24 character here. I suggest we remove this unnecessary comment --Ludvig 03:50, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

The way this article reads, it seems to be suggesting Capitalism is an extreamist philosophy along the lines of Facism and Communism that commits "atrocities"

well in many ways in it is... Joeyjojo 03:52, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

I would be nice to have some examples of this saying on the site.

the page seems to be lacking in any form of detail regarding the key ethical theories that accept this stance

Theories supporting this view
Grammatical and POV corrections. I like the sentiment, but felt it unfair to single out specific groups (from many) without reference to papers where utilitarianism is directly attributed to the group. Even then, the theory is attributed in some ways to far too many (maybe all) political/religious ideologies. Don't really like the moral blindness bit as it depends on your definition of morals, but left it in (but adjusted) to avoid debate mr happyhour 18:45 04 Aug 06

Ends-means debate
I think this article could be retitled the ends-means debate. There is another article on ends and means that could be unified with this one. It's an important debate-- and should be in Wikipedia.

A point of interest: Which school of thought would think that after an end has been decided, the means used need to lead to that end? Let's say, for example,that the school district decides that obesity in children is a major concern so it decides to only give students low-calorie meals. The plan backfires as the children do not like the food and get take-out from a nearby hamburger restaurant, and now consume more calories then ever. Even though children are clearly getting heavier, the school board decides to stick to its policy as its convinced that some children will benefit nonetheless.

Would it be a purely utilitarian argument to say that the school board has taken the wrong approach?

Also: what role does time have? Let's say, for example, that at first the children find the food disgusting and they are ordering food from elsewhere and gaining weight. However, after some years, the children have grown accustomed to the wholesome food made by the school and are now even teaching their families how to eat better. In a timeline then, at first the policy is a clear failure, but then it becomes a great success.

My question is, when can you evaluate the success of the means used?

Zoe12345 22:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

this article doesn't seem to be horribly unbalanced or anything, but one comment I could make is that the two arguments are not seperated enough, it seems like we get one or two sentences of one POV, then within the same section we get one or two sentences countering it...I'm all for the debate here, but can we get each side seperated as much as possible into their own section, i think that will make for a more readable (and thus more useful and informative) article... --Michael Lynn 23:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

What is this article suppose to be?
This article reads more like an Essay than an entry in an encyclopedia. Limited sources and sections that at the very least border on complete OR. This thing has been tagged for cleanup for almost a year. I am very tempted to take a knife to this and cut out all the non sourced, dubious OR. Arkon 19:20, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * People seem to think that citing the example's they're using will give the article more veracity. However, the examples seem arbitrary. It seems like this article has a specific slant to it instead of being purely encyclopedic.--Dr who1975 13:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You see, in order for wikipedia to be an encyclopedia it needs to acumulate knoledge from already existing sources, its not an issue of veracity or arbitrarism in the end, its about gathering information to then write it in an optimal way. As it stands the article is an essay, no matter how good you think it is, it doesnt hold grounds whatsoever to be placed here (its not even from a famous author and contains several assumptions from the western society). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 201.215.168.240 (talk) 07:14, 18 April 2007 (UTC).

I'm flagging other examples section original research for now
Since I am not familiar with this the American west example and also the content is not sourced, I am flagging it possible original research (WP:OR). Wikipedia is not a place for new ideas or new research. If your teacher/professor wrote a book on it please add his textbook in the references section. All content on Wikipedia is assumed to be previously published AFAIK. Plus the prose is not encyclopedic more like storytelling. Getonyourfeet 11:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You made some mistake when you put back the stuff I removed so I integreted things back to the way they were. Why dont we jst remove "other examples" entirely (including both my sheriff example and the non encyclodepic - modern day one too) and adjust the resulting section accordingly? If you disagree, why don't we submit to some form of conflict resolution?--Dr who1975 00:45, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm fine with that because the whole entire example section is OR plus a synthesis of these examples to "ends justify the means" has not been made to reliable source. If we remove the examples section then the dependency "Considering all outcomes of the means" needs to be readapted... Does anyone object to the removal? Getonyourfeet 01:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Just a note... I think this discussion should continue seperate to and regardless of the outcome of the merge request I've made.--Dr who1975 17:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Consequentialism
Shouldn't this page be turned into a redirect to Consequentialism?--Dr who1975 02:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Done --Owain loft 20:58, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Deletion - "merge" undelete?
Given the failed previous AfD,, the merge seems to have been rather hasty. I typed "the ends justify the means" into wikipedia's search because I wanted to read a discussion of that concept, and was disappointed to find that it wasn't really discussed at all where that brought me - to Consequentialism. But, I clicked to visit the redirect page, and found the article at which was pretty much what I was looking for (though the AfD notes, hardly an awesome article). So, I think it would be good if this was improved to the point that reversing the redirect makes sense. It doesn't look like any of the content of this article is actually in Consequentialism, so it was hardly a true 'merge'. I think it's a topic worthy of it's own article. Certainly the US' torture memos, which are still in the news today, are worthy of discussion, but what I was thinking of when I came here was war crimes in general, and the Nazi tests in concentration camps to, e.g. discover the maximum Gs, pressure changes, etc a human body could sustain, and the use of the resulting data, in particular. I don't know of a prescribed process for discussion prior to reverting a merge, if I felt it was time for one.--Elvey(t•c) 02:36, 8 November 2014 (UTC)