Life and how we live it, is the story of means and ends. The end is what we want and the means is how we get it. Whatever we think of any changes, especially social change, the question of means and ends arises. “Does this particular end justify this particular means?”
There is no easy and clear answer. Philosophers and political thinkers have debated this issue for centuries. The Haves wants to maintain the status quo and the Haves-Not want to change it. The Haves develop their own morality to justify their means of repression. The Haves usually establish laws and appoint their own kind to judge it. The Haves-Nots, from the beginning of time, have been compelled to appeal to “law of higher than man-made law” (God’s Law).
When the Have-Nots achieve success and become the Haves, their morality changes. Nehru sided with Gandhi to use non-violent means to kick the Britishers out of India, but he did not hesitate to use force to kick the Portugese out of Goa. Rousseau noted in his Social Contract that “Law is very good thing for men with property and very bad thing for men without property.”
What means one applies to achieve the end, does not depend on the end, but depends on what means one has at his disposal? Gandhi employed the non-violent tactic because he had no military means to kick out the British. Israel as a nation is small, but has a strong military; hence it uses its military to occupy extra Palestinian territories in spite of multiple U.N. Resolutions forbidding it. India did the same thing against Pakistan during the Bangladesh War. Martin Luther King Jr. used Gandhian type of non-violence means to achieve civil rights for American blacks because he had no military or economic power. In case of South Africa, trade boycotts (use of economic power) by other nations brought an end to the Apartheid system.
All great leaders, Jefferson, Lincoln, Gandhi and Churchil have invoked “moral principles” to cover naked self-interest in the clothing of “freedom”, “equality of mankind”, “a law higher than man-made law” and so on. This even held under circumstances of national crises when it was universally assumed that the end justify any means.
According to Saul Alinsky, “means and ends are so qualitatively inter related that, the true question has never been proverbial one, does the End justify the Means?” but always has been “Does this particular means?”
