Howard Zinn Quotes

Even for the world's only superpower, the ends don't always justify the means.

There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil." --Luke Skywalker

I think in general the ends do not justify the means.

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

All moral laws are merely statements that certain kinds of actions will have good effects.

The end justifies the means only when the means used are such as actually bring about the desired and desirable end.

But the nature of the universe is such that ends can never justify means. On the contrary, the means always determine the end.

The end never justifies the means because there is no end; there are only means.

They tend to be pretty abstract ones then, like doing what will have the best consequences; obviously you wouldn't specify what consequences are best, they may be different in some circumstances, so at a lower, more specific level, you may well get differences.

I'm a Utilitarian, so I don't see the rule against lying as absolute; it's always subject to some overriding utility which may prevent its exercise.

To be a utilitarian means that you judge actions as right or wrong in accordance with whether they have good consequences. So you try to do what will have the best consequences for all of those affected.

We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil, that good may come.

One cannot prescribe to anyone whether he should follow an ethic of absolute ends or an ethic of responsibility.

A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.

If the end does not justify the means, what does?

In the 17 years since I graduated from this great College of Law, I have seen that, for many of us, it becomes increasingly easy to rationalize our actions in the name of expediency when facing difficult decisions-to choose a path where the ends justify the means. I want to ask you to challenge Machiavelli's philosophy. I want to humbly suggest that you be the guardians of a more complicated truth: that the means are as important-and sometimes even more important-than the ends.

The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.

the ends never justify the means because IT never ends.

A Warrior knows that the ends do not justify the means. Because there are no ends, there are only means.

If it's anything that's going to result in suffering to animals or people, then I don't think [the end] justifies the means... Yeah; but then again if you could hurt ten people to save 100 people and there was no option, what would you do? I can't really address that.

The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means.

I doubt not, but from self-evident Propositions, by necessary Consequences, as incontestable as those in Mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out.

I don't see how anyone could really think that if you have a choice between saving the life of one person and saving the lives of a million people, to say - well, I've saved the one - can you really take that seriously? I can't.

In the real world in which we live, you always have to choose between evils. And in choosing between evils, you have to have moral criteria for how to make those choices.

I wanted to play around with the format, really tear it to pieces and shake it up. For example, if Mitch saves someone from drowning, and that person then goes out and releases a virus that kills a million people. Imagine the moral implications of that.