Means and Ends

How far will you go to accomplish your objectives?

This is not a simple question, and an extremely philosophical one. Many people are just happy to follow rules, those from society and those from the state, and will never need to explore this limit, but some will find themselves in the situation of having (or not having) to do something to accomplish a specific objective. And this special thing could bring you out of your value system, and force you to take some difficult decision. Is it ok to accept a bribe? Is it ok to exploit your connection to gain political advantage? Is it ok to kill someone to save yourself?

We are talking about ethics here, but ethics in my opinion is a very frivolous things. It can surely helps describing what is considered good or evil, and what that line could be, but it is a heavily personal and cultural issue. If you are Italian, like me, for example, you are bound to tolerate many behaviours, let’s say from a politician, that someone from USA won’t.

Being a Constructivist, you know I will not judge things on the good/evil scale. I simply won’t judge things altogether! This does not mean that I will do just anything to reach my objectives, but that I have a scale that does not come from society or religion rules, something that I discovered was good for me, and possibly depends on my economic background.

I call this, with great creativity, the Tolerable Consequence Approach.

The basic of this approach is very simple, and can be summed up with one sentence.

I’ll do anything, provided the fact that the consequences of my decision are the most tolerable, for my relationship with myself, my connections and the world.

On the other end, understanding completely this approach, is slightly more difficult, and requires a great dose of self-understanding, self-listening and self-awareness. There is so much self in all of this approach that it’s usually difficult find space for anything.

The critical issues in this rule are, in my experience, two. The first one is about consequences, the second one is about the meaning of tolerability.

Consequences are known but also unknown

The problem with consequences of a decision is that you understand just a (maybe small) part of them. And the real problem, is that you will have to live with all the consequences of your decisions, not only those you were able to predict.

Let’s say that you decide not to visit your girlfriend this weekend to fool around with some friends. The same days she is struck by a car, and she dies. Now, you surely couldn’t anticipate this, you probably just thought that you could see her the next day, but this won’t be possible. Your apparently simple decision had a terrible consequence, and you have now to work on your tolerability, because known or not it happened.

You may be feeling a little overwhelmed right now. I understand that this may cause great fear to you, but the idea is that to apply this approach you have to be aware that you are fully responsible for your decisions. Ok, there was also the car driver, your girlfriend, and if you want to believe it also god involved, but the fact that you took a decision and this had some consequences cannot be changed.

Excuse me if I stress this point, but i think it’s extremely important. You are not necessarily guilty of anything, but we are not talking about guilt, right or wrong, but about actions and consequences. You continuously influence others with your actions. Accept this, and manage this. Only this way you can understand the problem of consequences.

Tolerability is an extremely personal experience

Once you have completely understood the fact that your every action and decision has consequences, and you are somewhat responsible or at least involved in those, you may feel a little overwhelmed. And that’s ok. If you are not, you are possibly a sociopath, so I suggest you to get checked as soon as possible.

Now you it’s time to work on your tolerability. For example, it’s perfectly fine to decide that you can tolerate anything in which you were not completely responsible (it wasn’t you who did crush your girlfriend with a car, right?) and that’s ok, but it’s a very thin line. The consequence here, for example, is that you won’t see her anymore, and yours was the decision not to see her on the weekend. You are completely responsible for this, at the very least!

I have not an easy answer for this problem, i believe it depends on your value system, even if it’s somehow different. A traditional, let’s say religious value system, provides you with rules to follow, and clear lines between rights and wrongs. Your personal value system, on the other hand, is an endless scale of greys, and you are completely responsible for it. As for the consequences, responsibility is the key, in my opinion.

Conclusions

It’s easy to fall on extremes, when you talk about means and ends. You have religious dogmatism on one side, and a sort of machiavellian attitude on the other one. The approach i use comes somewhat in the middle, and, if you like, i consider it a responsible approach (you probably noticed that i used the word responsibility a lot in this post).

What do you think about tolerable consequences? You would find comfortable to apply this set of rules in your life? Let me know in the comments!