Today’s article by Eldon New on The War on Torture starting me thinking about ends and means. Note: Part of this material is from an earlier post tilted Making Choices.
Timothy Wilken
A human once said that the end justifies the means. And if I intend good, then my use of evil means is forgiven.
Another human said the means become the ends. If I use evil means even in the pursuit of good ends, I become evil.
Historian K. Santhanam wrote: “It was Mahatma Gandhi‘s firm conviction that means are at least as important as, and often even more important than, ends. It is, of course, desirable that ends should be good and reasonable. But they merely give a direction to life while the means adopted constitute life itself. Therefore, if the means are right, that is, if they conform to the tests of truth and non-violence, even mistakes, errors and failures aid the growth of the individual. On the other hand, wrong means corrupt the soul and no good can ever come out of them. Gandhi repudiated categorically the idea that ends justify the means. This implies the rejection of war, espionage and crooked diplomacy, even when they are adopted for the so-called noble ends of defending the country, religion or humanity.”
Edward Haskell, a pioneer of synergic science, explained:
“The first formulation of the MORAL LAW for a non-human “kingdom” of Universe was Dimitri Mendeleev’s discovery of the Periodic Law in 1869. “The properties of the chemical elements are functions of their atomic weights.”
“What Mendeleev’s discovery states for Atoms is that “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” where “reaping” is the properties of the chemical elements and “sowing” is the co-Action between the atom’s two components ≠ its vast, light, electron cloud, and its tiny, massive nucleus.”
Haskell’s analysis of the Atomic elements showed that these two components ≠ the electron cloud and the massive nucleus related in only three ways ≠ positive, neutral, or negative. Haskell called this the Moral Law of Unified Science.
For humans, the earliest formulation of the Moral Law of Unified Science appeared 3500 years ago as the doctrine of karma.
“Hinduism began in India about 1500 BC. The belief in rebirth, or samsara, as a potentially endless series of worldly existences in which every being is caught up was associated with the doctrine of karma (Sanskrit: karman; literally “act,” or “deed”). According to the doctrine of karma, good conduct brings a pleasant and happy result and creates a tendency toward similar good acts, while bad conduct brings an evil result and creates a tendency toward repeated evil actions. This furnishes the basic context for the moral life of the individual.”
The doctrine of karma was accepted by Buddha ~500 BC and is incorporated in modern Buddhism today. It appeared in western thought ~300 BC, in the Old Testament of the Bible as the phrase:
“As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”
Two thousand years ago Jesus of Nazareth stated this law this way:
“Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.“
Recall Universe is now understood to be process. Reality is a happening. Many things are going on all at once. Living systems ≠the plants, animals, and we humans all live within the EVENT paradigm. Buckminster Fuller defined an event to be a triad of related phenomena≠ action, reaction, resultant.
The dynamics of all behavior can be understood using these three concepts. Fuller discovered for every action there is a reaction, and a precessional resultant.
I can decide on an action. I can then implement my action. The environment including all life forms react to my action, the vector sum of the two (my action and the world’s reaction) produce a resultant. I act, the rest of the world reacts, and when it all settles down the change made by the interaction of the action and reaction is the resultant.
Now reformulating Haskell’s The Moral Law of Unified Science to include Fuller’s Principle of Action≠-Reaction≠-Resultant, we get:
Adversary action tends to provoke adversary reaction ending in an adversary resultant.
Neutral action tends to provoke neutral reaction ending in a neutral resultant.
And synergic action tends to provoke synergic reaction ending in a synergic resultant.
We humans have three choices. We can sow adversary actions and reap adversary resultants. We can sow neutral actions and reap neutral resultants. Or we can sow synergic actions and reap synergic resultants.
Thus Adversary means will produce adversary ends. Neutral means produce neutral ends. And, synergic means will produce synergic ends. Thus, means always become ends.
If we use torture to fight the war on terrorism, we become terrorists. …
We humans do have a choice in how we go about trying to make the world better. If we see the world as part evil, we can hate that part of the world that is evil and try to hurt and kill it. That is what the terrorists did who attacked the World Trade Center. They said the United States was Satan and they focused on making the evil part of the world less and less.
However, we have another choice. We can choose to see the world as part good, then we can love that part of the world that is good and try to help and support it. We can choose to focus on making the good part of the world more and more.
Remembering that the choices we make today will determine our future. What choice will you make?