Your list suggests the goal carries more weight that the sub goal. my point is why? Most of your replies have been to repeat the list which doesn't help!
So is your list based on utility? If not what? Why are bad bad subgoals not as bad as bad goals? — PhilosophyRunner
You've lost the plot, amigo. "Good / bad" – ends don't justify means.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/777050 — 180 Proof
Ah I see your problem.
Well I gave a number of examples. John want to save his son. This is an end, do you agree?
To do so he kills 100, this is the means to his end, do you agree? Each time he kills someone, he says "for my son!" — PhilosophyRunner
Non.But we are going around the mulberry bush, so best leave it there I think. — PhilosophyRunner
My goal was good, but not sure about my subgoal... — PhilosophyRunner
It's an emotional one. He's not calculating costs or justifying means; he's just following paternal instinct.Well I gave a number of examples. John want to save one person - Mark. This is an end, do you agree? — PhilosophyRunner
100 what? Terrorists who were holding his son hostage? Soldiers, guarding a fortification in which his son was prisoner, possibly tortured? Innocent bystanders who just happen to be in the way?To do so he kills 100
Maybe., this is the means to his end, do you agree?
If they're hostiles, yes; if they're bystanders, he says, "Sorry, I have no choice"Each time he kills someone, he says "for Mark!"
It's too late, John. You have done evil. Your son is worth no more to me, or to the world, than each one of those people you killed. NO - and more:He now comes to you and wants your advice - does his means justify his end. What do you say?
Each one of those people you killed has a father, brother, mother, wife, husband, son, daughter or comrade who now lives for revenge.... even if they have to fight their way through 100 strangers to get to you. — Vera Mont
Each of those people are ends in themselves. — PhilosophyRunner
People are ends in themselves. — I. Kant
I think we are on the same page on this issue. — PhilosophyRunner
Ah I see your problem.
Well I gave a number of examples. John want to save one person - Mark. This is an end, do you agree?
To do so he kills 100, this is the means to his end, do you agree? Each time he kills someone, he says "for Mark!"
He now comes to you and wants your advice - does his means justify his end. What do you say? — PhilosophyRunner
Well I gave a number of examples. John want to save one person - Mark. This is an end, do you agree?
To do so he kills 100, this is the means to his end, do you agree? Each time he kills someone, he says "for Mark!" — PhilosophyRunner
The difficulty is that ends and means are only separable in the limited mental intentionality of the individual. So what purports to be a pragmatic approach to morality falls at the first hurdle. For in reality saving and killing are interchangeable as ends and means. One might say that there are no ends, because the end one has in mind, if achieved, becomes the background means to some new end, just every effect becomes a cause of a new effect. — unenlightened
Indeed. They are not two categorically different things.The difficulty is that ends and means are only separable in the limited mental intentionality of the individual. — unenlightened
Exactly. — PhilosophyRunner
Could you expand on that? — PhilosophyRunner
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