Always Flight 93, Never Flight 93 (II)

It does not help the Flight 93 crowd's efforts to escape the imputation of Machiavellianism that the intellectually rigorous elements within their school of thought have that connection to Claremont, with its connection to Harry Jaffa and ultimately to Leo Strauss, and thence to a slightly more positive reading of Machiavelli than is usual in conservative circles.

But while the purely end-based ethics of Machiavelli are execrable, it is by no means clear that a focus on the end over the means is always wrong.  Indeed, to insist that the means in any human endeavor have all the splendor, moral and otherwise, of the end at which they aim, would be foolish.  If the means were as splendid as the end, they would as often as not simply be the end (hence the phrase "an end in itself").  None of this is to say that one can deliberately choose evil in order to achieve good--one cannot, for instance, commit theft in order to give to the poor.

But one should certainly not be surprised if, in the complexities of ordinary life, one finds oneself facing difficult choices; for reality is rarely so pure as examples like "theft to give to the poor" suggest.  Thus, for instance, I might find that in order to study for an exam I have to neglect sleeping and eating healthfully for a short period of time.  A Machiavellian would look at this and say that I am choosing an evil (neglect of my own health) in order to obtain a good I perceive as greater (knowledge and good grades).  But a believer in double effect theory would say (or at least hope) that I was rather choosing to study, and that the neglect of sleep and healthy eating were unfortunate, foreseen, permitted, but not deliberately chosen consequences of that choice to pursue the higher end of study.