Do the Ends Justify the Means?

At what point does power cross the line into the abuse thereof?  Is there ever a time when you must chose the lesser of evils in order to bring about “the greater good?”  These ethical questions are as old as humankind itself.

Sometimes in personal life as well as in the global community, sacrifices must indeed be made and the choices are not always clear-cut.  The problem arises when the power to judge falls into hands of those who may be, or may have once been well-intentioned people.

Immediately after 9/11 we saw an outbreak of terror-related scares (does anyone remember the anthrax scare?)  During those frightful times we as a people didn’t argue quite as much as we might today about the formation of The Department of Homeland Security, and all its implementation in the interest of national security and the war on terrorism.  Many of us accepted the measures because the images of the Twin Towers falling were still very clear in our memory.

But then we started questioning and losing trust.

Why?  Was it because our fears were unfounded, or was it because the effectiveness of the war on terror had brought us the very security which some have started to take for granted?

We can look back at times where certain atrocities happened and we either didn’t know about it, or simply couldn’t believe it possible.  The Holocaust and The Massacre in Nanking of 1937 comes to mind, among others such horrors.  What made it possible for the military to order such egregious acts upon other human beings?  Surely there was some “rationalization” or the soldiers who raped, maimed, tortured, mutilated and murdered all those civilians in Nanking would never have done so, and in such huge numbers.

In my book Darkroom one such character faces similar ethical dilemmas (albeit on a smaller scale than the Nanking Massacre).  He’s not a mustache twirling, one-dimensional character, he’s a person whose actions and attitudes raise the question: “Is it ever acceptable to do something bad to prevent something MUCH worse?”

There are those who believe that if the United States had not dropped the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, countless more (including Japanese citizens) would have died.

According to BILL DIETRICH, Seattle Times staff reporter, some would argue that:

• An invasion of Japan would have caused casualties on both sides that could easily have exceeded the toll at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
• The two targeted cities would have been firebombed anyway.
• Immediate use of the bomb convinced the world of its horror and prevented future use when nuclear stockpiles were far larger.
• The bomb’s use impressed the Soviet Union and halted the war quickly enough that the USSR did not demand joint occupation of Japan.

One only needs to look at the horrific pictures of the victims on either side of the war to know that there is no easy way to conclude if it was justifiable or not.

So, what do you think?  Do the ends ever justify the means?

Feel free to discuss in the comments section

Joshua Graham is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, winner of the International Book Award and Forward National Literature Award. His thrillers include DARKROOM, LATENT IMAGE and BEYOND JUSTICE, and TERMINUS. Graham's works have been characterized as thought-provoking page-turners.

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