Means Versus Ends

MEANS VERSUS ENDS

Christopher Ebbe, Ph.D.   1-14

ABSTRACT:  Psychological aspects of the means versus ends issue are explored.  Taking responsibility for our actions is urged.

KEY WORDS:  means, ends, means vs. ends, morality, selfishness, self-servingness

The means vs. ends issue can be stated as the ambivalence that we have about taking actions that benefit some (usually us) while doing harm to others or the world.  Most of our actions do affect others, often harming them to some degree, but so many of these negative consequences are assumed to be trivial that we generally don’t frame the question as means versus ends unless direct taking of human life is involved. 

Every action that we take affects the world and therefore other people as well in some way, however small.  Every piece of litter, every electricity-generating wind machine used, and every lump of coal burned affects the environment and other people, but since we look at them as only actions in the moment, and we don’t see immediate negative effects, we incorrectly judge that there have been no effects. 

Typical vignettes for discussion of means-end issues involve provocative choices between various negative outcomes (which person or persons to save and which to let die), but in the real world, all of our actions affect others and the world, so perhaps it would be more productive and far-reaching to deal simply with the decision-making process, whether or not we would traditionally have categorized the issue at hand as means-end or not.  (Another view of this might be that we should add all decisions to the means-end category, since they all should command our attention and none are truly simple.)

The usefulness of the typical between-a-rock-and-a-hard place means-end examples is to hopefully make us more aware that choices matter, that no matter what we choose to do, there will be consequences.  The insights to be gained from means-end discussions are that choosing to take any action leads to negative consequences of some type (as well as, hopefully, the desired positive consequences), and that there are negative consequences both for others and for ourselves in addition to any positive outcomes for ourselves or others.

To take the use of missiles or drones in war as an example, by using missiles or drones we may keep some of our soldiers from dying by keeping them off of the battlefield, but (a) it inevitably results in some civilian “collateral” damage deaths; (b) repeated use of drones removes some of the horror of war from our awareness and therefore makes us a bit more callous about war and about the lives of people in other countries; (c) it makes wars cheaper and therefore more possible to conduct; (d) it does not lead as effectively as occupying territory to cessation of fighting; and (e) it may lead to more wars in total (and more of our soldiers dying), since the immediate and visible cost of wars has been lowered.  Human beings usually opt for the immediate positive benefit (saving our own lives or money) over negative consequences in the future, even though the total of those negative consequences may be great enough to outweigh the immediate positive result.  This is the essential dilemma of these choices, and the only way for our decisions to be different would be for us to adopt a decision-making routine that we disciplined ourselves to use in every case that would help us overcome our immediate benefit bias.

Drones may also be used to “assassinate” persons whom the U. S. presumes to be enemies, working with or for Al-Quaeda, for example.  This usually occurs in countries in which the U. S. does not have a military presence and is done as a convenience.  In other words, we can kill someone we want to kill in someone else’s country without ever “being in” that country.  It could be argued, as above, that this may save some of our soldier’s lives, but the negative effects are that (a) it weakens the sovereignty of all nations; (b) it suggests to other countries that they need not police their countries for these persons, since the U. S. will do it; (c) it makes clear to other countries that they are free to do the same on U. S. soil (assassinate those whom they view as enemies without setting foot in the U. S.); and of course (d) it may well kill innocent civilians, just as in an active war zone.

In society and in all of our personal choices, we would do well to recognize and take seriously all of the results of our choices, even the indirect and future results.  There are prices to be paid for using drones to kill, and we will pay them, even if we decide that the pluses outweigh the minuses.

To use some other illustrations about choices that have both positive and negative consequences, making credit easily available in our society (a means) has had the predicted and desired effect of boosting consumer spending (the desired end), as well as providing income for credit care companies, but it has also created a society in which saving is unpopular, family financial stability is weakened, and millions more people are going to suffer in retirement in the future (all generally unanticipated and undesirable ends).  Is the convenience of credit cards worth these other consequences?  It’s far too simple to fall back on the “people are responsible for themselves and should make better decisions” excuse.  Since large numbers of people in fact don’t take adequate responsibility for themselves when immediate versus long-term consequences are their choice, and since those who make these bad choices will end up being a tax burden on the rest of us, perhaps we should re-think our credit policy!

We have eliminated the military draft, a supposedly desirable thing, since it frees up more citizens to do other things with their lives without interruption, but this means has also created a non-volunteer armed forces, so that most of the population has little personal idea of the sacrifices and dangers of armed conflict and is therefore much more willing to allow the government to go to war, since they don’t have to be in danger themselves.  (All of the lip service honoring of veterans these day has a self-serving component as well, as people thank their lucky stars that they didn’t have to fight.) 

This effect is augmented by the tendency lately for administrations to borrow most of the money for a war, rather than increasing current taxes to pay for it, so once again, citizens don’t see any immediate negative consequences for themselves of the country engaging in a war.  Borrowing has allowed the government to engage in a war (which sometimes no doubt is in the national interest), but it has also had the effect of making citizens think that they will not have to be financially burdened by a war (which is false since they will eventually have to pay for the borrowing).

We have greatly broadened the entertainment available to us (a seemingly desirable end), but this has also decreased the population’s activity level and made them more passive and dependent on fantasy wish fulfillment than before (an undesirable end).

We have made great strides in drugs that affect our feelings and reduce pain (both legal and illegal!), but this means has also resulted in a population that believes that it shouldn’t have to feel pain and is therefore less able to tolerate difficulties and deal with adversity.

Means vs. ends comes into play with respect to waste products and the environment in so far as we want certain ends (clean environments, warm homes, inexpensive transportation, plastic products, inexpensive manufacturing), and we have always been willing to use means that resulted in using up the world’s resources and creating polluting waste products and environmental impacts that we didn’t have to deal with or pay for.  Now those waste products and environmental impacts are having enough impact (which will get even worse if we don’t do something about it) to make us realize that the means that we are used to using are unacceptable and that we must find other means to achieve those same ends, if we can.  Human beings don’t like to be restricted or confined by limitations, and so we struggle with our dilemma of not wanting to give up our unacceptable means even though we can see their unacceptable impacts.

In global warming we finally are facing up to how millions of individual “no effect” actions add up to quite notable and sometimes dangerous effects.  Perhaps those who resist the idea that human beings are affecting the weather by their actions are resisting partly out of a wish not to have to recognize the fact that every one of their actions has an effect.  People used to simply throw out their garbage in the street and tolerate the stench that resulted.  Now we cart it all away, so that the homeowners and businessowners don’t have to “be affected,” but it is carted somewhere and piled up into true mountains of waste, or incinerated which adds to global warming, or dumped in the ocean which changes the species balances and temperature of the oceans.  Wind turbines are cited as “sustainable,” but they slow down the global flow of air, no matter how little that is for each turbine, and this has an effect on the global weather pattern.

We have been able to employ these look-the-other-way “solutions” to our impact on the environment only because the planet is huge, and we do not directly observe the consequences of our actions.  For tens of thousands of years, there were not enough people on the planet to overwhelm the natural decay processes inherent in the rest of nature, so human waste did not build up, but now there are enough people that their bodily waste products along with their energy uses and manufacturing waste products are rapidly adding up to something quite significant.

THE ISSUES

As stated above, it is more useful for us to focus on the total array of benefits and negative consequences of all of our choices and not just those more traditionally labeled as means-end issues.  The primary difficulties in all decisions, besides distinguishing accurate from inaccurate information, are that (1) we are biased toward immediate as opposed to future consequences and (2) we are biased toward making too much of the desirable consequences and too little of the negative consequences, because we are biased toward the option that we want to take even before we consider all of the consequences.

Even if we decide to make better decisions by identifying without bias all relevant factors, we still have no calculus with which to accurately weigh up the pros and cons to see how they balance.  We have no table to assign some sort of number to how much a child’s life is “worth” in contrast to the life of an older person or whether a lifetime of mild guilt will be less or more important than giving up something we want right now in order to “do the right thing.”  The best we poor, limited human beings can do is to make as clear and honest a comparison as we can and then accept the partly rational and partly emotional “reading” that we get in our minds from that.

THE SOLUTION

The solution here is to learn how to make better decisions—in particular to discipline ourselves to consider as objectively as possible all of the consequences of our actions, for ourselves and others, both positive and negative, both immediate and deferred, before making a choice.

In order to make the best choices among all options, it may be essential to force yourself to consider solutions that you don’t like.  Human beings have a strong innate drive to procreate, but clearly it is going to be possible within the next hundred years to have so many people on the planet that many will starve and crowding will increase the suicide rate.  Considering this as a real possibility (instead of refusing to consider it by stating as an article of faith that “science will find a way to feed us all, no matter how many people there are,” may be crucial to the survival of our species.

Another example of an unpalatable but perhaps necessary “solution,” this one to the problem of waste, would be to require all factories and other production facilities to process (not store) all waste on their factory premises or to contract for its proper disposal.  This would mean no more dumping waste into rivers or oceans, no more carting things to a landfill, and no moving to a new site when the old one gets too polluted.  This would be costly for some businesses, but then consumers would know and be paying the actual cost of production instead of the actual cost minus the cost of processing waste that has in the past been less expensively placed in the environment where it can affect the lives of everyone.  We will no doubt be very reluctant to take these very difficult actions in the future, because we are used to depending on the planet to process our waste for free instead of paying for this processing ourselves.

A routine of steps for making fact-based decisions that take feelings and desires and all outcomes into account contains the following steps.  The method requires a deliberate and unhurried approach, taking the time to reflect and to allow thoughts and feelings to surface that may be buried or unfamiliar (from Ebbe--Problem Analysis).

Write out a description of the problem.

Examine all of the elements of your description of the problem, to ensure that they are accurate and true.  Make sure that your "facts" are facts and not opinions or wishful thinking.  Admit it if you don't know something. 

Carefully consider the impact on your problem description of your motives, your feelings, and how you wish reality to be.  Refine your problem description by removing distortions due to your motives, feelings, and wishful thinking.

Are there deadlines or important timelines concerning the problem?

How have things in the past led to the problem? 

Who are all of the other people who are actively involved in the problem? 

What are the views of others about this problem?

What are all of the different feelings that you have about the problem or aspects of the problem?

What have you yourself contributed to making this a problem or to its lack of solution so far?

How do you feel about yourself in relation to the problem?

What are all of the potential solutions to the problem that you can think of?  Be open to those solutions that you do not initially feel good about.

What are the moral and ethical questions raised by your potential solutions?  What are the moral and ethical issues of not acting at all?  Consider these carefully, since these are probably the elements of decisions that come from deepest within us.  Get moral/ethical consultation if you can’t reach clarity yourself.

Narrow down the potential solutions by excluding those that you could not carry out for lack of ability or resources or because the solution would not be morally palatable to you.

Notice which remaining solutions will work only if you can get someone else to do what you want. 

What are all of the outcomes of each remaining potential solution, including outcomes far in the future and the impact of your possible actions on others?  Be open to all outcomes, especially those that you know you would prefer to ignore.

What will be the remaining unsolved elements of the problem after each solution you are considering is implemented?

What are the unintended results of each potential solution? 

Are there legal ramifications of any of the possible solutions (or of non-solution)?

Examine the actions and resources necessary for each remaining solution, to ensure that you have the ability and the resources for each.  Discard those that are not feasible.

How would you feel about yourself after solving the problem in each of the remaining possible ways?

Make a list of the uncertainties and major questions you still have, if any, about your solutions, and talk them over with a trusted adviser.

Choose the solution that seems most desirable, given--

         the actions necessary

         the resources needed

         the outcomes anticipated

         your feeling about each solution

These steps of thinking carefully about all aspects of the decision-making process help greatly to clarify options, but in the end they do not help us to evaluate those options.  In order to choose between options that all have both positive and negative consequences, we must use our sense of values to determine which consequences are more important than others, and we must “add up” in our minds the sums of the net effects of those positive and negative consequences for each option.

Allow yourself some time (at least overnight and preferably a couple of days) to let yourself fully "feel" the results of your deliberations.  Pay attention to nagging questions, uncertainties, and new considerations that come to your mind.  Re-evaluate your chosen solution if necessary.  If you don't "feel right" about the solution, back up and reconsider the alternatives or generate new ones.  (In some cases, the best solution may be not to act!)

HELPFUL ATTITUDES

Your consideration of how your potential actions could affect others will be much more effective if you care at least somewhat about others’ feelings and welfare. 

Having adequate empathy skills is also very helpful in this regard.

Greater awareness of how important other people are to our meeting our own needs moves us toward considering the benefits and costs to everyone of our decisions and not just the benefits and costs to ourselves.

Your choices will be better informed and more humane if you believe that in the long run you will gain more rewards and get more out of life if you take others' needs and feelings into account when you act, trying not to harm them and sometimes allowing them to meet their needs at the expense of your own immediate gains.

Your choices will be more effective if you have the best fact base possible for the choice.  Distinguishing reality from opinion and distinguishing reality from our emotion-induced wishes and distortions of reality are just as essential for this as using only trustworthy fact sources.

Your choices will be more effective if you have as much commitment to the truth as you do to your immediate gratification, since this will at least minimize the bias that we grow up with toward choosing the immediate gratification and ignoring the facts.

(For further explanation of removing distortions from your thinking and the cultivation of empathy and social concern to help make better decisions, see (Ebbe) “Better Decisions,” “Empathy,” and “Gaining Wisdom.”)

USING THESE IDEAS IN YOUR LIFE

You as an individual can take the first step toward making the world a better place by adopting these methods of decision-making in your own life.  You can pay attention to all of the negative as well as the positive consequences of your choices, especially those that are likely to occur in the future.  You can make a commitment to seeking the truth and to recognizing how you distort reality in order to take care of your immediate feelings.  You can check out every one of your thoughts and opinions, to see if they are really true or if they contain distorted wishful thinking.  You can develop greater empathy and take your impact on others more seriously.  You can pay attention to how much others contribute to your life, and you can cultivate a personal attitude of gratitude for your life and for what you have in life.  You can acknowledge and honor your motives, while removing their distorting effects from your problem-solving assertions.  It sounds like a lot to do, but you can do it little by little, using available attention to consider each of these items as they come up in your daily life. 

The most effective single thing you can do to improve your decision-making is to wonder for each of your thoughts if it is really true, given what you know or could know if you cared to, and examining how your wishful thinking might be coloring your thinking. 

You could teach your children to value the truth and to use it to make their lives better, by your example and by examining with them the consequences of their decisions and their distortions of reality.

You can make a difference in the world and improve your own life, too, by examining all of the positive and negative consequences of your actions, by taking others' needs and feelings appropriately into account in your decisions and actions and by getting the most accurate information that you can to help you to understand the issues.

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