DebateLabKIT/deepa2-corpus · Datasets at Hugging Face

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women, who would have been killed, are alive today.
290
Ends and Means
In 1976 Bob Brown, then a young medical practitioner, rafted
down the Franklin river, in Tasmania's southwest. The wild
beauty of the river and the peace of the undisturbed forests
around it impressed him deeply. Then, around a bend on the
lower reaches of the river, he came across workers for the
Hydro-Electric Commission, studying the feasibility of building
a dam across the river. Brown gave up his medical practice
and founded the Tasmanian Wilderness Society, with the object
of protecting the state's remaining wilderness areas. Despite
vigorous campaigning, the Hydro-Electric Commission recommended
the building of the dam, and after some vacillation the
state government, with support both from the business community
and the labour unions, decided to go ahead. The Tasmanian
Wilderness Society organized a non-violent blockade
of the road being built to the dam site. In 1982, Brown, along
with many others, was arrested and jailed for four days for
trespassing on land controlled by the Hydro-Electric Commission.
But the blockade became a focus of national attention,
and although the Australian federal government was not direcdy
responsible for the dam, it became an issue in the federal
election that was then due. The Australian Labor Party, in opposition
before the election, pledged to explore constitutional
means of preventing the dam from going ahead. The election
saw the Labor party elected to office, and legislation passed to
stop the dam. Though challenged by the Tasmanian government,
the legislation was upheld by a narrow majority of the
High Court of Australia on the grounds that the Tasmanian
southwest was a World Heritage area, and the federal government
had constitutional powers to uphold the international
treaty creating the World Heritage Commission. Today the
Franklin still runs free.
Do we have an overriding obligation to obey the law? Oskar
Schindler, the members of the Animal Liberation Front who
291
Practical Ethics
took Gennarelli's videotapes, Joan Andrews of Operation Rescue,
and Bob Brown and those who joined him in front of the
bulldozers in Tasmania's southwest were all breaking the law.
Were they all acting wrongly?
The question cannot be dealt with by invoking the simplistic
formula: 'the end never justifies the means'. For all but the
strictest adherent of an ethic of rules, the end sometimes does
justify the means. Most people think that lying is wrong, other
things being equal, yet think it right to lie in order to avoid
causing unnecessary offence or embarrassment - for instance,
when a well-meaning relative gives you a hideous vase for your
birthday, and then asks if you really like it. If this relatively
trivial end can justify lying, it is even more obvious that some
important end - preventing a murder, or saving animals from
great suffering - can justify lying. Thus the principle that the
end cannot justify the means is easily breached. The difficult
issue is not whether the end can ever justify the means, but
which means are justified by which ends.
INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE AND THE LAW
There are many people who are opposed to damming wild
rivers, to the exploitation of animals, or to abortion, but who
do not break the law in order to stop these activities. No doubt
some members of the more conventional conservation, animal
liberation, and anti-abortion organizations do not commit illegal
acts because they do not wish to be fined or imprisoned; but
others would be prepared to take the consequences of illegal
acts. They refrain only because they respect and obey the moral
authority of the law.
Who is right in this ethical disagreement? Are we under any
moral obligation to obey the law, if the law protects and sanctions
things we hold utterly wrong? A clear-cut answer to this
question was given by the nineteenth-century American radical,
292
Ends and Means
Henry Thoreau. In his essay entitled 'Civil Disobedience' - perhaps
the first use of this now-familiar phrase - he wrote:
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign
his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience,
then? I think we should be men first and subjects afterwards. It
is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for
the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is
to do at any time what I think right.
The American philosopher Robert Paul Wolff has written in
similar vein:
The defining mark of the state is authority, the right to rule. The
primary obligation of man is autonomy, the refusal to be ruled,
It would seem, then, that there can be no resolution of the conflict
between the autonomy of the individual and the putative authority
of the state. Insofar as a man fulfills his obligation to
make himself the author of his decisions, he will resist the state's
claim to have authority over him.
Thoreau and Wolff resolve the conflict between individual and
society in favour of the individual. We should do as our conscience
dIctates, as we autonomously decide we ought to do:
not as the law directs. Anything else would be a denial of our
capacity for ethical choice.
Thus stated, the issue looks straightforward and the ThoreauWolff
answer obviously right. So Oskar Schindler, the Animal
Liberation Front, Joan Andrews, and Bob Brown were fully
justified in doing what they saw to be right, rather than what
the state laid down as lawful. But is it that simple? There is a
sense in which it is undeniable that, as Thoreau says, we ought

women, who would have been killed, are alive today.

290

Ends and Means

In 1976 Bob Brown, then a young medical practitioner, rafted

down the Franklin river, in Tasmania's southwest. The wild

beauty of the river and the peace of the undisturbed forests

around it impressed him deeply. Then, around a bend on the

lower reaches of the river, he came across workers for the

Hydro-Electric Commission, studying the feasibility of building

a dam across the river. Brown gave up his medical practice

and founded the Tasmanian Wilderness Society, with the object

of protecting the state's remaining wilderness areas. Despite

vigorous campaigning, the Hydro-Electric Commission recommended

the building of the dam, and after some vacillation the

state government, with support both from the business community

and the labour unions, decided to go ahead. The Tasmanian

Wilderness Society organized a non-violent blockade

of the road being built to the dam site. In 1982, Brown, along

with many others, was arrested and jailed for four days for

trespassing on land controlled by the Hydro-Electric Commission.

But the blockade became a focus of national attention,

and although the Australian federal government was not direcdy

responsible for the dam, it became an issue in the federal

election that was then due. The Australian Labor Party, in opposition

before the election, pledged to explore constitutional

means of preventing the dam from going ahead. The election

saw the Labor party elected to office, and legislation passed to

stop the dam. Though challenged by the Tasmanian government,

the legislation was upheld by a narrow majority of the

High Court of Australia on the grounds that the Tasmanian

southwest was a World Heritage area, and the federal government

had constitutional powers to uphold the international

treaty creating the World Heritage Commission. Today the

Franklin still runs free.

Do we have an overriding obligation to obey the law? Oskar

Schindler, the members of the Animal Liberation Front who

291

Practical Ethics

took Gennarelli's videotapes, Joan Andrews of Operation Rescue,

and Bob Brown and those who joined him in front of the

bulldozers in Tasmania's southwest were all breaking the law.

Were they all acting wrongly?

The question cannot be dealt with by invoking the simplistic

formula: 'the end never justifies the means'. For all but the

strictest adherent of an ethic of rules, the end sometimes does

justify the means. Most people think that lying is wrong, other

things being equal, yet think it right to lie in order to avoid

causing unnecessary offence or embarrassment - for instance,

when a well-meaning relative gives you a hideous vase for your

birthday, and then asks if you really like it. If this relatively

trivial end can justify lying, it is even more obvious that some

important end - preventing a murder, or saving animals from

great suffering - can justify lying. Thus the principle that the

end cannot justify the means is easily breached. The difficult

issue is not whether the end can ever justify the means, but

which means are justified by which ends.

INDIVIDUAL CONSCIENCE AND THE LAW

There are many people who are opposed to damming wild

rivers, to the exploitation of animals, or to abortion, but who

do not break the law in order to stop these activities. No doubt

some members of the more conventional conservation, animal

liberation, and anti-abortion organizations do not commit illegal

acts because they do not wish to be fined or imprisoned; but

others would be prepared to take the consequences of illegal

acts. They refrain only because they respect and obey the moral

authority of the law.

Who is right in this ethical disagreement? Are we under any

moral obligation to obey the law, if the law protects and sanctions

things we hold utterly wrong? A clear-cut answer to this

question was given by the nineteenth-century American radical,

292

Ends and Means

Henry Thoreau. In his essay entitled 'Civil Disobedience' - perhaps

the first use of this now-familiar phrase - he wrote:

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign

his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience,

then? I think we should be men first and subjects afterwards. It

is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for

the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is

to do at any time what I think right.

The American philosopher Robert Paul Wolff has written in

similar vein:

The defining mark of the state is authority, the right to rule. The

primary obligation of man is autonomy, the refusal to be ruled,

It would seem, then, that there can be no resolution of the conflict

between the autonomy of the individual and the putative authority

of the state. Insofar as a man fulfills his obligation to

make himself the author of his decisions, he will resist the state's

claim to have authority over him.

Thoreau and Wolff resolve the conflict between individual and

society in favour of the individual. We should do as our conscience

dIctates, as we autonomously decide we ought to do:

not as the law directs. Anything else would be a denial of our

capacity for ethical choice.

Thus stated, the issue looks straightforward and the ThoreauWolff

answer obviously right. So Oskar Schindler, the Animal

Liberation Front, Joan Andrews, and Bob Brown were fully

justified in doing what they saw to be right, rather than what

the state laid down as lawful. But is it that simple? There is a

sense in which it is undeniable that, as Thoreau says, we ought