The ends justify the means

Before going into what I believe are the flaws in the theory Pro proposes, it is useful to review what a more classical approach to the problem of morality says on the matter.Moral Framework Freedom makes man a moral agent. Deliberate actions, made freely after a judgement of conscience can be judged morally. These actions can be qualified as good, evil or neutral. Morality of acts depends on three elements, taken together Object (not to be confused with objective): what is being done (the means) Intention: why the person chooses to do it (end) Context: morally relevant circumstances that can increase or decrease goodness or evil of an action or even affect the responsibility of the person who realizes the act in question. It cannot however make a good act evil or an evil act good. Here, we will limit ourselves to the object and the intention, the means and ends in the language of the resolution. There are other factors to take into consideration, such as formal vs material cooperation or mediate and immediate cooperation which, for the sake of clarity, I hope will not need to enter this conversation. In case they eventually do need mention, I mention them in passing. Intrinsic and Extrinsic EvilsThere are certain actions, such as rape, murder or slander that are everywhere and always wrong, not because of they are ordered to, but because the act itself is intrinsically evil. These violate respectively a person's sexual integrity, life and honor, each one of these Goods valued as such due to a consideration of human dignity, the basis on which morality itself is based. Whether you base this human dignity on the fact that mankind are made in the image and likeness of God or, as secular humanism does, on the extraordinary quality of mankind as a rational being this is such a primary consideration that to violate this principle in whatever degree cannot be justified by a given circumstance.Other things are not intrinsic evils, but are configured as just or unjust by outside factors, extrinsically. This is where the aforementioned framework steps in. To push someone is not in and of itself evil. You may push someone out of anger in order to intimidate them or you may push them playfully in order to show trust and affection. Even pushing someone off a cliff can be a morally neutral act, depending if your intent is to kill the person or force them to defeat their fears and finally experience the thrill of bungee-jumping. In this case you can say, in a sense, that the intention, or end, justifies the object, or means. It gives positive or negative moral character to a neutral proposition, but it cannot make a direct violation of the fundamental moral principles, intrinsic evils, good.Even in the former case -- in which we discount intrinsic evils -- to say that it is the intention which makes the action good or bad would be a reductionist view. The nature of good is perfection, and the nature of evil is to be flawed. For an act to be good, both the object and the intention must be morally acceptable. A morally acceptable, or even a morally good object, such as doing volunteer work, may be done for morally unacceptable (for vainglory) or even evil reasons (to fend off suspicion of criminal activity and elude justice). In the same way, a morally good intention (defending the environment) does not constitute a morally positive action if the means are intrinsic evils (murdering the owner of a coal mine). The problem comes, in many people's minds, when the good that is intended is comparable in importance or even apparently greater than the evil that is to be done. The circumstance is sometimes mentioned by moral philosophers or psychologists in which a large boulder is rolling down towards a group of 15 hikers who would surely die if you do not shove a rather fat man between them (large enough to stop the boulder) therefore killing him. Surely, they say, the life of the one is worth sacrificing for the good of the many. In violating that primary moral principle (the inviolability of innocent human life) in directly participating in the murder of the large man, one has so thoroughly betrayed the very source of the goodness of the intention that it brings into question the integrity of the act itself. While the fact of the death of 15 people is doubtless tragic, we cannot do evil that good may come of it.Flaws in Pro's positionThe definitions in my opponent's line of thinking constitute a form of equivocation. Pro argues that "If the 'means' produce lasting negative effects that outweigh the 'good' of the ends, then the 'means' to that situation become the ends". In saying this, Pro seems to define, rather arbitrarily, the terms to mean something completely different to their common understanding. To Pro, the 'means' are any morally neutral methods to accomplish something whereas 'ends' are both the intention behind actions and the morally relevant methods used to accomplish those intentions. This equivocation empties the original phrase of all meaning as it could be rendered as "The morally relevant component of actions justify the morally irrelevant ones". This is clearly not what is originally meant by the adage. In addition to this, there seems to be some confusion to what the word "ends" is intended to mean. The "ends" in this context are to be taken to mean the outcome worked towards, the purpose. This is not the same thing as result. We cannot know the result, nor can we make moral judgements based on them, we can, however, consider the worthiness of a purpose or objective. More on that later. This is also a reductionist view of a matter which Pro himself admits is rather complex. It ignores components of the action which can clearly be differentiated and weighed separately.It is a position which lends itself to subjectivism. For instance, getting a degree is a morally worthy intention, or end. Two different people may choose different means to attain this end. One may choose to study hard and the other may choose to cheat off the one who studies. The person making the choice may say that, in judging the relative moral weight of the means and ends, and thinking of the ramifications this could lead to, he has decided that all in all the result of him passing is morally preferable to the result of not passing. This, then, would constitute a moral act for that person. Some may argue that this is not the case, as the end result is that an unqualified person is given the same degree as a hard-working and qualified one, however, the fact is that the position can lend itself to far too much interpretation and rationalization ("I am just not good at tests, but I know my stuff and would be a marvelous doctor" OR "Who cares? A degree in law is just a prerequisite to get into my uncle's company, I'm never actually going to need to use this" etc). A moral framework that does not serve to guide moral decision-making is simply not useful.The full ramifications cannot be the source of the moral character of a situation. It is simply unreasonable to believe that a person can truly know the full ramifications of his actions. Pro mentions elsewhere that he states his belief that the premise assumes that the person must know that the results would be "net-positive". This is, however, assuming too much. It would essentially make this an empty theoretical discussion of the morality of omniscient beings. We cannot ever know the full ramifications of our actions because we are not omniscient. We do not know the location and trajectory of every atom in the universe, we do not know whether the rain will make it likely for a person to slip and break his neck when we playfully push them away, we do not know how others will react to something we say. We can only judge our actions by what is presently true: by the action we will make and by the objective it aims towards. Never by the results which have not (and may never be) achieved.