A Man is As Good as His Goals

 While traversing the vast landscape that is the high school experience, I’ve always been confused by the idea of moral purpose. We inherit our views on morality from our surroundings, including our parents, peers, superiors, and inferiors, choosing to abide by a certain set of rules that help us participate in our chosen society. 

On morality, I remember Aristotle’s words: “What makes a man a ‘sophist’ is not his faculty, but his moral purpose”. The idea being that one’s goals define oneself, not their present intellect or capabilities. While an aphorism so seemingly obvious seems trite, exploring the implications that the saying could have opens up a much darker side of philosophy.

There’s an idea that all philosophies are true in what they assert and incorrect in what they reject, because no form of ethics can exist that tells one how to live without committing an act of hypocrisy. 

Combining both these ideas together, I’ve begun to toy with the idea that a person can only be(and should be) as good as their objective. In essence, the ends must be as moral as the means: no more, no less.

A person who wants to do good has no ethical reason to commit an act of harm or destruction, because then they would be violating the very goal they pursued. On a darker note, someone aiming to murder someone, well… must be willing to murder someone, along with causing harm and wanton destruction in order to achieve the end goal.

For example, Daniel Plainview