Do the ends justify the means?

[Patriotic Kaz]

This discussion was brought up in my government class when discussing if you should be able to pass legislation on faulty science (this came up do to the recent global warming scandal, it wasn't an argument over whether global warming exist). I personally believe you can justify the actions of every tyrant in history if you believe the ends justify the means, that includes Hitler. So I'm curious how you feel.

[Chaos]

I believe that generalizations and absolute statements like that get humanity nowhere (except in mathematics!), so one must analyze individual event and decide on merits, not preconceived rules. "The end don't justify the means" sounds great, but there's got to be examples where this is a "bad" course of action, just as much as the sentence's inverse. And there are plenty of things where "the ends justifying the means" have led to terrible things.

Ultimately one must decide what "good" and "bad" mean, which is extremely difficult in a massive, worldwide scale. It's all very grey, a grey-ness which this question does not account for.

[Patriotic Kaz]

I'll concede to that argument, it's rational. However on a large scale it is a valid question, when you get into the concepts of fibs, etc. I don't really care but this was sparked by the passage of legislation which is a big deal.

All absolutes have an exception, including all absolutes have an exception.