Does the End Justify the Means?

Does the end justify the means?

Machiavelli first introduced the doctrine "the end justifies the means" in his book The Prince in 1532, where he argued that a ruler must do everything that needs to be done in order to uphold his power, even if that means the necessary actions will not allow him to keep a clear conscience. He reasoned that situations might arise where the moral judgment must be sacrificed for the sake of preserving political power. Machiavelli believed that once achieved, power justifies all means. But does a good outcome really excuse any wrongs committed to attain it?

The term Machiavellianism is defined as "the political doctrine of Machiavelli, which denies the relevance of morality in political affairs and holds that craft and deceit are justified in pursuing and maintaining political power" ("Machiavellianism," 2014). This definition suggests that when it comes to power the end justifies the means. The priority for the power holder therefore is to keep the state secure regardless of the morality of the means.

There are quite a few historical examples of leaders, who believed that indeed, the end justifies the means. In 1889, Friedrich Engels, a German political theorist, declared in his letter to Herson Trier: "Any means that leads to the aim suits me as a revolutionary, whether it is the most violent or that which appears to be most peaceable" (Iyer, 2013). The well-known German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote "Do ye say that a good cause halloweth even war? I say to you a good war halloweth any cause" (Riemer, Simon & Romance, 2014). Russian Communist revolutionary Lenin once said "There have been many wars in history which, notwithstanding all the horrors, cruelties, miseries, and tortures inevitably connected with every war, have a progressive character, i.e. they served in the development of mankind, aiding in the destruction of extremely pernicious and reactionary institutions ... or helping to remove the most barbarous despotism in Europe" (Iyer, 2013). Does the justification whether an action is justified or not simply depend on what historical end it serves?

Mahatma Ghandi, father of the Indian independence movement, acknowledged, "that even great men who have been considered religious have committed grievous crimes through the mistaken belief that there is no moral connection or interdependence between the means and the end" (Iyer, 2013). He believed that we always have control over the means but not over the end, meaning that we have the capacity to decide what to do in a specific situation, but we are lacking the prediction and control over the consequences of our actions. Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, wrote an article in which he stated that Stalin was absolved from the crimes in his lifetime, because he convinced the citizen of the Soviet Union that his acts were essential to realize a higher purpose. "A great pain gives birth to a great 'flow of energy', as Stalin once declared ... We realized that the means must be worthy of the end. This is an axiom, but an axiom that has been proved through much suffering" (Iyer, 2013). For Stalin, "all means were suitable, even the most inhumane" (Russia and the, 2013). It seems that in politics, immoral means are a reaction to the realities of political life and an acknowledgment of an inevitable element in political behavior. "This is because politics poses questions for which conventional