When does the End Justify the Means?.
At least at one point in our lives, each one of us has had to make a poor or dishonest decision. We may have even tried to justify our actions by twisting the truth or thinking that is was for the best in the end. These often seemingly small actions do affect who we are and portray our image to those around us. As we enter the professional world there is not much tolerance for little white lies, dishonesty, or justification. Our choices will either make or break us. But, the purpose of this paper is to explore if there are instances when it is better to withhold the truth or avoid misleading others when it seems perfectly justifiable. There are some ways that we can avoid these costly decisions. When does the end justify the means?.
Many would argue that there are moments when we must lie or bend the truth in order to be beneficial to a majority of people. In class we talked about the Oliver North controversy. He claimed that even though he would under normal circumstances not lie, he was obligated to lie to congress in order to save many innocent lives. It seems that North was faced with a difficult moral dilemma. But personally, I think that by lying, he only made things worse in the end. Every one when confronted with a discussion is by one means or another influenced by self recognition, pride, greed, or other outside contributing factors. If North would have stated to the proper leaders his initial concerns and cleared himself from the total burden perhaps he wouldn't have ended up in the interrogated seat. Many of the cases good or bad, which we have so far studied, have ended with controversy. No one likes to be misled. Another example brought up in class is from the video that presented the example that if a man with a gun rushed into your home and asked where your brother is, saying that he would kill him, would you be honest in telling him? Though in the North case I think that honesty up front is best, in the latter I think that we are not obligated to give freely of information to those whom themselves are not honest and upright.