: Purpose justifies meansFeb 13 2005, 13:55 PM

One question that I could never answer completely is whether one has the right to undermine the law to enforce it. I don't want to talk about “human rights” this time, just ethics and possibly morals. Let's consider a few examples. First I will illustrate a simple, yet specific case and then go on from there…
Consider a “warez website”. It is illegal to distribute “pirated software” and there various ways to enforce the law in this case, but you yourself decided to step in. You do a (D)DoS attack on the website. Putting aside the issue of rights (whether you have the right to intervene or not), did you do an ethical thing, as not only “warez” is illegal, but also such attacks? I think this is unethical for plenty of reasons, one of which (by no means main and only) could be that the website could“ve been hosted a long with a number of other websites that will also be down during the attack.
Now consider a website used by terrorists to communicate with each other (assume this website(s) actually exist(s)). This time it is the government who steps in and the only way to found out what terrorists are planning and possibly to prevent another deadly terrorist attack is for FBIa href=“http://www.nsa.gov/” target=”_blank”>NSADHS to hack this website. This time it is much harder to say whether it is ethical or not. My background makes me say that in no way does “purpose justifies means” and so such action will be unethical. Should the FBI do it? It doesn't really matter, as the FBI will still do it to protect me among all, keeping in mind that it will be unethical and will undermine the law itself (Orwell: “Everybody is equal, but some are more equal than others”).
We must not undermine the law to enforce it, but can we do it to protect human rights? If we value human life higher then everything else, then we will answer “Yes!”

P.S. As you can see I'm still not satisfied with the “answer” I got. I say “yes”, but I'm not content. Why? Probably because my answer goes against my ethics and my beliefs. I believe that purpose does not justify means, but I sometimes say otherwise. Am I a hypocrite? Tell me, as I'm afraid I am.

P.P.S. Read Elena Bonner“s (Sakharov“s widow) statement on Russian elections. This is not totally on the subject because it doesn't talk about law and ethics, but rather ethics and politics, but it is still talking about purpose and means… Plus Bonner is really smart, so it won't do any harm if you read this short article ;)