Is doing the wrong thing for the right reason ever morally justified?

[JaybeeInCUK]

and I put it to you that you lift up off your seat a little.

because you are talking through your @rse and I can't hear you clearly

Go.

Away.

[EternalOptimist]

Yes.

PS - Not interested in any navel gazing/hang-wringing debate. Thought that would save y'all some time

dead right. all the talk usually comes after the event, rationalisation. rather than a pre-thought out belief system

[doodab]

It's wrong to murder people. If you do, you go to jail.
In a war, it's right to murder people, if you dont, you go to jail

If you steal food, it's wrong and you go to jail
if your kids are starving and you dont steal food, you are wrong and deserve to go to hell


it's not easy. and playing with words dont make it any easier

In some situations it's morally justified to kill or steal and therefore it's the right thing to do. It seems difficult because you have two contradictory statements and they can't both be true. That's usually a good sign that one of them isn't.

[doodab]

Only if you consider morality to be a fixed rather than a relative concept.

I expect the rules to be fixed however as the rules take into account particular circumstances and an individual's frame of reference the end result is more like what most people consider "relative morality" than the blanket prohibition on certain behaviors that most people consider "fixed morality".

Note that this doesn't automatically imply that things could occur which some observers might consider wrong and others right, maintenance of consistency would be an important property of the rules, in much the same way that causation is an important property of general relativity.

I also expect that much like einstein's formulation of gravitation the rules won't make a lot of sense to most people and they will have to make do with rules of thumb like "though shalt not kill"

[escapeUK]

Is doing the wrong thing for me, but the right thing morally ever personally justified?

I think not.

[Robinho]

What is morally wrong about growing and selling cannabis?

[speling bee]

What is morally wrong about growing and selling cannabis?

Perhaps the question is, what is morally wrong about breaking the law?

[xoggoth]

Perhaps the question is, what is morally wrong about breaking the law?

Maybe it's just as well we live in a more sceptic age or HMRC would be telling us it's a mortal sin not to get our tax returns in on time.

[speling bee]

Maybe it's just as well we live in a more sceptic age or HMRC would be telling us it's a mortal sin not to get our tax returns in on time.

Is Tax Evasion a Mortal Sin?