Justification of actions- Sri Lankan political context
There is a big hue and cry about recent political events in Sri Lanka, especially about the alleged payment of large sums of money to change political allegiance.
Looking back in History, the practice of offering money for some sort of personal gain, apparently done immorally, is not new. In 1518,
the Pope sent a Dominican Friar,
Johann Tetzel to Germany, to sell “indulgences” to raise money to help rebuild St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. An indulgence is granted for a remission of temporal punishment after the sinner has had performed good work and usually also required a payment to the Church. Luther was outraged by this “immoral” practice, what he regarded as a purchase of salvation.
What is the similarity? Both are actions which are justified on the basis that “the end justified the means”. Some philosophies indirectly support such a view by stating that what matters is the Motive or Chetana. Philosophers such as
Kant was of the view that for an action to be moral, it had to be one that could apply to everyone, including yourself (Biblical similarity- “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” from Sermon on the Mount). Most Religions believe that moral rules are transcendentally fixed (Universal God or Consciousness, or Moral Laws such as Karma). Marxism regards Morality purely as a behavioural phenomenon where virtue is judged by the effects of an action on the individuals in a community and is dynamic and evolutionary with no absolutes.
“The End justifies the means” is widely believed to have been first used by the Italian Philosopher
Machiavelli in his work,
The Prince (not the exact words, but the meaning). This suggests that there are indeed moral actions (how do you define them?) but they are not set in stone and can be overridden by an apparently immoral action if the objective of that action is moral. i.e. Morally wrong actions are sometimes necessary to achieve morally right outcomes; actions can only be considered morally right or wrong by virtue of the morality of the outcome. Morality is a big subject and humans will continue to interpret/justify/rationalise their action by using beliefs/convictions such as “The end justifies the means”. Just to complicate matters, the sought for end may be a mix of personal gain and gain for Society as a whole and nobody has suggested a formula such as
if A60%= or more of B, then X to Y is not justified where A is personal gain and B is Societal gain, and X is the action and Y is the Intention
