2006-10-01 02:15:13 · 12 answers · asked by Annalyn S 1 in Education & Reference ➔ Homework Help
Well, let's take the Iraq war. Let's say 'the end' was to oust Saddam and bring democracy. America went to war to achieve this - millions of innocent Iraqi people have died, thousands of US soldiers and thousands of NPO/media people etc. Saddam has been ousted and there has been an election. The end was achieved, but the way it was achieved (the mean) was not justified.
2006-10-01 02:21:09 · answer #1 · answered by Ya-sai 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Essentially it means you should not do something evil to achieve a (supposedly) good thing
Consider for example the people who are prepared to betray their own country just to spite some politician. Or the so-called "peace movement" which is prepared to see milions of people murdered by tyrants just so long as it is officially called "peace"- and even if the so-called "war" brings fewer casualties that the everyday "peacetime" murders.
Of course please bear in mind that if you use this argument in a class report, and your teacher is a liberal or a peacenik, then you will be in deep, deep trouble.
Maybe better to use something like "if an alligator is found in a local lake, then it is not appropriate to poison the whole lake just to catch a single, even if potentially dangerous, animal. Some more acceptable method should be found" Few people will argue with that.
2006-10-01 02:30:07 · answer #2 · answered by cp_scipiom 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
What it means is this. The end result of what you have done may be a good thing (you had good intentions). But, the way you went about achieving that end result, was not good. The things you did to get the result you wanted were wrong or hurtful to others, and therefore although the end result was good, the way you got it wasn't worth it, at least to others.
2006-10-01 02:27:37 · answer #3 · answered by lhasapal 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Example: to root out terrorism, you start a war on a nation. The payoff isn't there. It's an equation that doesn't add up, doesn't make sense. You don't fight fire with fire. The only time this kind of logic really works is in Homeopathy - to heal the effects of a bee sting, you take a pellet of honey bee concentrate. (Apis mellifica)
2006-10-01 02:22:58 · answer #4 · answered by Helga J 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It means just because something did/could turn out ok in the end that doesn't justify using immoral, illegal or otherwise wrong ways of getting there.
2006-10-01 02:17:59 · answer #5 · answered by Emily 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
That means , the method or the path chosen to achieve a certain goal , is also equally important. While keeping one's eye on the result one should not loose sight of the method employed to achieve it .
2006-10-01 02:27:42 · answer #6 · answered by surajit patnaik 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If used in context, it loosely means that if you place questions on Yahoo, your exam results may not be as good as you had hoped because you haven't given it any thought yourself. In simple terms, how good your exam results are, is not an indication of how good a blagger you are. Geddit?
2006-10-01 02:22:16 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
it means that
it's not good to achieve good results through wrong or illegal ways.
for example: a student entered an exam and was not able to answer some questions so he started to cheat and answered correctly and got full marks.
So his aim was a good thing which is to succeed
BUT his way to success was through cheating..
Have a good day
2006-10-01 02:27:38 · answer #8 · answered by 6SLV 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Don't do something wrong to get the result you want.
2006-10-01 02:17:34 · answer #9 · answered by Cara Beth 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The results don't excuse what you did to get it.
2006-10-01 02:22:54 · answer #10 · answered by Sudy Nim 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋