Niccolo Machiavelli's 'Ends Justifying The Mean'
If one uses immoral ways to reach a goal, that goal becomes stigmatized by the ways used to reach it. Politician and philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli is known for coining the phrase, “Ends justifying the means” in his book The Prince. This quote leaves us with the question, “is it worth it to reach a goal no matter what you have to do to get there?” Machiavelli believed that wrong deeds can be justified simply by having a good purpose for those actions but his theory is flawed, because no matter the end goal one should not try to reach it through evil actions.
People are only to be excused if the means used to reach a certain objective are just as good as the outcome. There are many other ways to reach a goal through moral and pure actions. Greek Philosopher, Aristotle believed “Doing anything well requires virtue or excellence, and therefore living well …show more content…
consists in activities caused by the rational soul in accordance with virtue or excellence” (Aristotle).
For Aristotle the process of being a saintly person(the means) are what defends the end as to what the moral person would do(the ends) so, for Aristotle “the ends don't justify the means, but instead the means justify
the ends” (Kenny). How you reach a goal is more significant than the goal itself, one person can’t use good intentions as an excuse for poor actions to get there, standing true to morals and beliefs is far more valuable than how the end turns out. It has become known that some political leaders and other professional businessmen, don’t truly know what it means when “the ends don’t justify the means.” They seem to think as if “people are saying to desire pancakes, but cannot justify making the batter” (Williams) it is so much more it is a matter of right and wrong. Joseph Stalin for example, is responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He used those peoples death as a way to create a better life for the Soviet society. Did the improvement of so many lives make up for the deaths of those millions of people? He destroyed the lives and families of so many people in hopes to create a certain utopia that in his eyes was perfect, but through all of this he became known genocidaire because his intentions were to form a peaceful world but he ended up creating madness because of his actions.
People are only to be excused if the means used to reach a certain objective are just as good as the outcome. There are many other ways to reach a goal through moral and pure actions. Greek Philosopher, Aristotle believed “Doing anything well requires virtue or excellence, and therefore living well …show more content…
consists in activities caused by the rational soul in accordance with virtue or excellence” (Aristotle).
For Aristotle the process of being a saintly person(the means) are what defends the end as to what the moral person would do(the ends) so, for Aristotle “the ends don't justify the means, but instead the means justify
the ends” (Kenny). How you reach a goal is more significant than the goal itself, one person can’t use good intentions as an excuse for poor actions to get there, standing true to morals and beliefs is far more valuable than how the end turns out. It has become known that some political leaders and other professional businessmen, don’t truly know what it means when “the ends don’t justify the means.” They seem to think as if “people are saying to desire pancakes, but cannot justify making the batter” (Williams) it is so much more it is a matter of right and wrong. Joseph Stalin for example, is responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He used those peoples death as a way to create a better life for the Soviet society. Did the improvement of so many lives make up for the deaths of those millions of people? He destroyed the lives and families of so many people in hopes to create a certain utopia that in his eyes was perfect, but through all of this he became known genocidaire because his intentions were to form a peaceful world but he ended up creating madness because of his actions.