Is it allowable to do evil to prevent evil?

[Patjade]

This is a good one:

You have a building full of people. ONE person might be a terrorist, bent on killing others. You don't know who it is, but you think he may be in that building. Do you blow up the building?

You have a prisoner who might know something about a terrorist operation. How far are you willing to go to extract that information from him?

These are hard, aren't they? But life isn't easy. We all know torture is evil, but there are those who claim that it is for a good cause. When does perpetrating evil become good? And by whose standards? ANd how about that building? Are you willing to kill 100 people to get at the possibly ONE person who might later take lives for their own cause? is this justified?

In the last few years, especially, evil acts have been perpetrated in the name of "good" causes.

I happen to not think that is right. Evil is evil, no matter who does it or why. "Good" people who perpetrate evil have nullified any good or decent "capital" they have accrued.

I am not talking self-defense. Some people use THAT as an excuse. If you see a person with a gun aimed at you, then you should be able to take them out. But if they are not armed and you shoot them, thinking that they might have had a weapon, someplace, then you have no excuse. With logic like that, there would be nothing to stop people from killing each other just because they might.

Any thoughts?

[Deleted]

This is my theroy on this one; When you fight fire with fire, you end up getting a large flame and eventually that flame won't go out. So of you counter a bad thing with a really bad thing, you're just making the problem worse. And if you don't fix it or do something about the flame (problem) then it's going to get too big to fix.

My 3 cents.

[Patjade]

Agreed. If you stoop to doing evil, what makes you any better than those you accuse of being evil? In my mind, all you have done is lowered yourself to their level.

[theunorthodox]

Well, this can be taken to many levels.

For example: We all know killing is wrong, but killing a cow to eat it is considered, by many, a good cause for it to die, since we want to eat its tender fleshy rump. In the same context, we kill millions upon millions of animals and leave many more homeless when we plow a field to farm crops and use the pesticides to keep them insect-free, yet this is considered a good cause since eating plants saves the lives of the cows.
We all know stealing is wrong, but is it wrong for a poor man to steal a loaf of bread to feed his family? (I know he could go to a soup kitchen, but not every country is rich enough to have such luxurious resources for the poor).


There are thousands of instances this kind of thinking can be used for. So I can't give an answer.

[Smiley]

I agree with Unorthodox - this isn't merely black and white, for there are good and bad consequences for that type of thinking.

As for your two examples, Patjade, I believe that, on the surface, they are unjustified.

But what would happen if there really was a terrorist, and he/she started a murdering spree, and ended up killing everyone in the building and countless others on the streets? Wouldn't people cry, "We should have burned the building when we had the chance!"?

And of course, if you did burn down the building before everything happened, wouldn't people cry, "Why did you do that? There was no proof that he/she was a terrorist!"?

I'm not supporting or opposing it, just offering another viewpoint. I have seen the effects of the above, from both what was done and what wasn't done, and both caused huge uproars.

In the end, I think that all of this is too gray and controversial to formulate a solid answer. You can never be too careful - except when you're being too careful. You're only too lenient when you're not lenient enough.

[Rishiy]

Burning building. Do you save your two siblings, or five strangers?

[Deleted]

Guest-Rishiy said:

Burning building. Do you save your two siblings, or five strangers?

Ah, but the question should be; did you start the fire? Did YOU leave your siblings and the strangers in there for dead?

[mushroom]

I think some amount of bad can be justified in the service of good. It's kind of a balance: if you commit genocide to get Hitler out of power, you've taken the "means to an end" thing a little too far.

On the other hand, it's disgusting to let something terrible happen because you would have to do a moderate amount of evil to stop it. Killing is wrong, but refusing on principle to kill the man gunning down a school full of people is much, much worse.

Torturing common soldiers is a major no-no most of the time. Torturing a dictator/terrorist himself might be a different story.

Destroying the building full of people is almost always not going to be an acceptable thing; if a terrorist, whom you are certain is in that building, is almost certain to kill more people than are in the building before you can get just him, it's probably justified to me. Otherwise, it's probably not.

So, there's a lot of gray--you have to decide whether or not you're likely to be preventing more evil than you're causing. And sometimes someone with absolutely perfect intentions will go too far, and will have to be stopped; maybe most people will. Evil things, no matter why they're done, aren't something to do lightly.

[Patjade]

Ah, but if one commits evil acts against those they consider evil, does that not lower them to the level of the evil ones they seek to destroy? Remember, that I said MIGHT in the situations mentioned. Not a for certain.

And just because you suspect that someone might be evil, does that give you license to kill them first and then try and ascertain the facts afterwards, in order to maybe save other lives?

In my mind, if someone is claiming the moral high ground, they have to take extra precautions not to commit the same atrocities that the ones they are accusing of being evil are committing, unless they wish to join those in the bottom of the cesspool.

[The Wanderer]

This is precisely why I do not wish to become involved in occupations that "require" me to do whatever necessary to save lives. If I want to be in league to save lives, I would've become a firefighter, or EMT. As far as I am aware, those are the only "pure" (to a point) life-saving occupations I can really think of.

If we do things that are just as bad as the accused, then who are we really? Are we "Freedom Fighters?" Or are we "terrorists?"

I have heard this quote from numerous people. It goes:

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

The real question we should ask ourselves is, are we doing this for everyone? Or are we giving in to fear, and excusing our own cruel acts as a method of fighting terrorism?

[Patjade]

A good point, Wanderer. I am a bit ticked off that people call those who are fighting back "Insurgents" and "Terrorists". I wonder what the British called the people who fought against them in 1775? Did they call the colonists terrorists and the foreign troops that helped them insurgents?

What if some power decided to invade the US? Would those people defending their homes become insurgents and terrorists because they chose to fight back against a force that was threatening to occupy their town and destroy their homes, or conduct house to house searches looking for "bad guys"?

Remember that not everyone in the USA is a part of the military, and they are terming anyone who is not in uniform and fighting back with those terms. I think under those conditions, most Americans would fit that description if someone invaded us.

But that is just another way of looking at the situation, isn't it?

And I think we are doing this partially because Americans are afraid, and partly because we are angry and wish to lash out at everyone. It made sense to attack Afghanistan; that was where most of the camps were, plus the guy who masterminded it. But it made no sense to attack Iraq. There was nothing before, and even less now that linked him to 9-11.

Sure, he was a bad guy. But then, if the USA went around attacking bad guys, we'd be in half the countries of the world. And there were even worse people we could have attacked that made more sense. I think the American people were hoodwinked by a person that:

1. Wanted revenge for his daddy. (for several reasons)
2. Wanted the oil for his buddies (Afghanistan had nothing of interest)

But then, I have expounded on this before. It is funny that people talk about the atrocities that Saddam committed against his people, yet the number of people killed in this war just about equals that number. Who can then claim we did the "right thing" when we are doing the same things Saddam did, such as torturing people and shooting unarmed, injured people?

Think about it.

[Jessica Coconut]

I believe the phrase we need to examine is:

"... Do the ends always justify the means? ..."

I'm unaware of the exact, full quote, but that's the important part, or at least the gist of it.

It asks if it holds true that: as long as you can get to the ending you want, you do whatever it takes to get there?

This takes a little thought.

One could interpret this in such a way that they can say, well, "as long as I get the A on my math test, does it matter how I got it?" impling you could cheat to get a good grade. Which is wrong.

But on the other hand, more seriously, it looks at really controversial issues, where people consider sacrifices so called "for the greater good."

You all know what I'm talking about.

[mushroom]

But isn't it also evil to allow evil to occur? How is it anything besides moral elitism and arrogance to allow the blood of thousands to spill to keep your own hands clean of the bloodstains of a few?

"Evil" and "good" can only occur with free will. I believe that it's the same principle here. If the only way to prevent a great evil is to commit a small evil, that smaller evil is not an evil act of the good person committing it. It's instead the evil act of the evil person who made it necessary.

Of course, that rests on the assumption that preventing evil is good, and that a small amount of evil is better than a large amount of evil. It's overly simplistic as well, assuming that one always knows how much evil will result from a particular action, and that evil is measurable. (Which is worse: the brutal, drawn-out torture and death of one man, or a quicker and somewhat more humane but still painful death for two? I certainly don't know.) It also leaves a lot to human judgment, which is highly falliable, and ignores that humans can't even agree on what is and isn't evil.

I'm not arguing for the acceptability of any specific evil, and especially not various evils done by the US in the Iraqi war. I don't believe that we are clearly on the good side there--there probably isn't any "good" side in this conflict. I'm arguing for the general principle.

I'm not saying that evil done in the service of a better cause is a good thing or anything but a last resort, but I do believe that doing evil in the attempt to prevent greater evil doesn't automatically make a good person evil him- or herself.