Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeraph
For instance, police constantly giving drug dealers, fencers and the like a free pass if they rat out someone higher up the food chain (a bigger criminal). In other words, for them law is subjective, and the ends justify the means. I don't know if its right or wrong, just if we should apply the same to our daily lives.
Well all the philosophy I've read has almost always made the case for the means never justifies the ends.
What does that say about the law? How much should one support certain laws? Should we all make up our mind? In a way that might be complete anarchy. So its like there is no answer.
For example though, personally in the shoplifting thread, I say let the shoplifters get away with it if its from one of the creepy corporations like walmart or target. Other giant corporations I think its ok to steal from would include those that outsource jobs. Basically because they are already stealing from the people by not having to pay the same taxes, not having to pay our countries people for a job, etc. So if corporations steal, and the law justifies the means, why shouldn't we as individuals?
In other words, that almost makes a argument for shoplifting being legal for big corporations.
There's got to be some way we can decide as a citizen and make a bit of a difference.
So do the ends justify the means? The cops certainly think so. Which speaks poorly of them IMO.
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The thing is, it's awfully hard to generalize. My feeling is that quite often, if not even most of the time, the end does not justify the means. But occasionally it can happen.
Part of the ultimate problem with law is that it must be general; and yet generalities cannot fit every circumstance, or even fit most circumstances with equal success. We can attempt to ameliorate this by instituting legislative and executive checks and balances, multiple reviews of legislation and ideas for legislation, or even creating legislative initiatives wherein the people may directly vote for laws, or to nullify laws.
But ultimately, the way that we are supposed to ameliorate this is to have fair and unbiased judges with broad and strong powers of interpretation of the law and authority in sentencing. Which, as of this moment in American history, we are miserably, suckingly failing at. And we are also supposed to create a fair and equitable society, where the laws are structured in such a way as to support the average person, and not to screw them in favor of huge multinational conglomerates that, for idiotic reasons, we have decided to legally call "people" and invest with individual rights, despite the fact that they are corrupting every branch of government in our nation. Which, perhaps needless to say, we are also failing at.
In theory, we should be able to make general laws that are flexibly interpreted by fair judges in the context of a fair society in such a way that justice is served, whether in the case at hand the end justified the means, the means justified the end, or justification of one by the other was never at issue. Whether that will happen any time soon...? Another story.