The End Justifies The Means (Essay Sample)

“The end justifies the means” is an old phrasing which dates way back in the 16th century and was formed from Niccolo Machiavelli’s famous saying “Men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you.”

In general, the phrase “The end justifies the means” means an act of doing bad or wicked things in order to achieve a goal. Technically speaking, this is when someone wants to achieve a goal so badly that they have no regards whether the act or the steps they need in order to achieve their goal is wrong; moreover, they even deem these bad acts as acceptable.

Niccolo Machiavelli firmly believed that any evil action is acceptable as long as it is justifiable for a good cause. This essay will particularly focus on why and why not this statement is correct.

Firstly, there is nothing wrong in helping. This statement has a positive meaning so think about the movie “Robin Hood”. Robin Hood is a fictional character from the Disney movie “Robin Hood”. He is considered a criminal in their nation since he “robs” the government of tax payers’ money. The only reason why Robin Hood did his deeds was because his village was so poor that the villagers could hardly afford anything to eat and so, with his gang, he would seize carriages and take the gold before distributing them fairly to the townsfolk. Another instance which makes this statement a positive one is when a family member of yours is sick and your financial capabilities are not exactly excellent. Boosted by the adrenaline rush and the desperation to save your relative, you had no other options but to still from a wealthy businessman or any other person whom you knew was capable of providing enough money to cater to your needs.

Another thing to take into consideration is our goals. Goals are meant to be ambitions which one day we hope to achieve and thus, if your ambition is big enough, you will absolutely anything in order to attain them. Unfortunately for some, their desperation and their desire to attain their goals are so severe that they ended up deviating from their original plans in order to achieve them. Think of a businessman who once owned a business empire but due to multiple scandals and corruption done in his business, he needed to file for bankruptcy and ultimately lost everything he worked hard for. He had a never give up attitude though and started to device another business in his mind; however this time, he would use any means necessary in order to gain the funds he needed to start and run it. His plans included killing off his relatives and some friends and ended up getting the insurance money from the relatives and had someone blackmail their insurance company that his friends applied in which he took the money from as well. In short, there is no such thing as too little in order to achieve a man’s dreams.

What am I trying to say here exactly? Is “The end justifies the means” a correct statement or not? While this statement does hold some positivity and truth in it, it also holds something negative and that is rooted from the desperation of being able to perform an action which would result into something good either for themselves or others. Thus, the statement “The end justifies the means” is two-faced wherein it can either be good or bad but it highly depends on the situation at hand.

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