Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means
Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means One of the
main concerns of Gandhi’s discourse on the connection between ends and means
flows from its centrality of his entire edifice which suggests that it's not
merely an issue of an instrument. a stimulating postulate of social policy is
that the ultimate elimination of conflict which suggests eliminating the
factors that make a conflict situation. Since, within the process of resolution
of conflict, there's neither a winner nor a loser as within the case of a war
or a settlement received by use of brutal force, this framework provides the
blueprint for lasting peace. This also means peace is intrinsically linked to
non-violent action and a commitment of resolution of conflict only by peaceful
means. Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means As such, non-violence
ceases to be a negative concept and features a positive dimension within the
context of peaceful evolution of society.
This results in the exposition of the emergence of a
compassionate individual which tries to bridge the gulf between two important
factors: compassion and non-violence. This synthesis eliminates needing for
revolutionary violence and creates a situation of continuous co-relationship
between means and ends. Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means
Bringing the question of morality and ethics because the core to know the
importance of this significant relationship between a specific activity, to
steer to a specific redress ultimately features a larger ramification within
the context of the universal ethical content of any such local act.
This also means the dynamic by itself will make it totally
redundant the difficulty of a conflict between ends and means because the
unfoldment of the non-violent mass struggle will itself cause the logical
culmination of reaching a bigger ethical point. Gandhi’s experiments with truth
in itself is a sign of this type of an activity which is conducive to the
larger framework of an ethic . Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and
Means This also results in another interesting innovation in Gandhi together
with his doctrine of relative truth and suspicion of any quite determinism
The concept of ends-means relationship is that the core of Gandhi’s social
philosophy and conflict resolution. For Gandhi, means and ends are inextricably
linked that ends justifies the means which “an end which needs unjust means
isn't a just end”. within the Hind Swaraj (1909) the Editor tells the Reader,
who argues in favour of the forcible overthrow of British rule out India: Gandhi's
views on the importance of Ends and Means “Your belief that there's no
connection between the means and therefore the end may be a great mistake.
Through that mistake even men who are considered religious have committed
grievous crimes. Your reasoning is that the same as saying that we will get a
rose through planting a noxious weed. If i would like to cross the ocean, I can
do so only by means of a vessel; if I were to use a cart for that purpose, both
the cart and that i would soon find the bottom…. The means could also be
likened to a seed, the top of a tree; and there's just an equivalent inviolable
connection between the means and therefore the refore the end as there's
between the seed and the tree. i'm unlikely to get the result flowing from the
worship of God by laying myself prostrate before Satan….We reap exactly as we
sow Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means”.
Impure means would end
in impure end. Justice couldn't be secured through unjust means; freedom
couldn't be obtained through unfair means and peace couldn't be realised by
war. Gandhi also stresses on the close link between the notions of right and
duty; to enforce one and forget the opposite may be a redundant argument.
Marxism too isn't rigid on the notion of ends and means
because it rejects supra-historic morality and categorical imperatives, both
religious and secular. Engels and Lenin justify the utilization of any means to
understand the specified end. In his pamphlet Socialism and War, Lenin points
out that the Marxists differ from the pacifists and anarchists in their belief
that the justification of every war must be seen individually in reference to
its historical role and its consequences . Gandhi's views on the importance of
Ends and Means , Means might be
justified with regard to the historical end it serves. Trotsky, unlike Engels
and Lenin, emphasises on the dialectical interdependence of means and ends and
underlines that the means chosen are people who are likely to steer to human
liberationm . For Trotsky, ends don't justify the means but meaning might be
justified only by its end, which for him, is that the increase of the facility
of man over nature and therefore the end of the facility of 1 over the opposite
. For Gandhi, the top is satya or truth which needs no justification and
therefore the means- ahimsa or non-violence must be justified not only with
regard to the top but also in itself. Every act must be justified with regard
to satya and ahimsa.
Purity Of Ends And Means
Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means Iyer notes that Gandhi not only
completely rejects the dichotomy which is established between ends and means
but also insists on the utilization of right and/or moral means to the extent
that they, instead of the ends provide the quality of reference. the connection
between means and ends isn't a technical one but an ethical one, one that
involves choice which needs an initial decision about the specified end and
therefore the obligatory acceptance of whatever steps are necessary to secure
it or presumably to try to to so. He constantly emphasises that evil means
could never cause good ends. Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means
Noble and good ends could never be attained by evil and/or immoral means.
Guided by his belief within the law of Karma he underlines the organic
interdependence between means and ends. He also stresses on the very fact that
individuals have control over the means but not over the top .
Gandhi’s conception of ends and means need to be also understood within
the context of his insistence that each one folks are bearers of relative truth
and none can stake a claim to understand absolute truth or sat. As bearers of
relative truth we all know our version which satya or truth would seem
differently to different people, within the same manner because the five blind
persons who held to different parts of an elephant; each knew his version but
far faraway from the totality of reality. If there are disagreements about ends
it's because citizenry are creatures of relative truth. The concept of relative
truth and therefore the factual have a standard concern for truth that led
Gandhi to enforce ahimsa or non-violence towards each other . A seeker of truth
or satya may be a practitioner of non-violence or ahimsa. Gandhi's views on the
importance of Ends and Means Iyer also
observes that Gandhi’s “concept of satya, with ahimsa because the means,
determined his doctrine of satyagraha or active resistance to authority, while
the concept of ahimsa, with satya because the common end, enabled him to
formulate his doctrine of sarvodaya or peaceful socialism”.
Iyer’s further explanation deserves to be quoted as follows:
Writing an introduction to Ruskin’s Unto This Last Gandhi states that “the
polis is nothing more or but the domain during which all men are liberal to
gain skill within the art of action and find out how to exemplify satya and ahimsa;
Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means the means during which both
the individual quest might be furthered and social virtues displayed among the
masses of citizens during a climate of tolerance and civility; a morally
progressive society during which neither the State nor any social organization
is allowed to flout with impunity the sacred principle that each man is
entitled to his relative truth and nobody can claim the proper to coerce
another, to treat him as a way to his own end”.
AHIMSA MEANS to understand SWARAJ
Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means Gandhi
places the top of swaraj and points out that its realisation would depend upon
the adoption of the proper means. He insists on the necessity to specialise in
the choice of means keeping in sight only a broad image and a way of direction
regarding the top , the attainment of swaraj. Like Huxley , Gandhi believes
that a corrupt means doesn't fail to corrupt the top . Like Tolstoy, Gandhi
observes that when violence is injected into non-violence, the latter would
become superfluous and cease to be a guide for all times .
Gandhi considers non-violence as an all-pervasive and eternal
Principle “applicable to each situation in life with none exception’. The
practice of non-violence requires moral discipline that might control passions
and emotions. Gandhi's views on the importance of Ends and Means Non-violence
consists in allowing others the ‘maximum of convenience at the utmost of
inconvenience’ to the self and thus a satyagrahi must be able to embrace
self-suffering and self-effacement. Gandhi pleads for voluntary poverty,
voluntary simplicity and voluntary suffering as that might free the soul from
the bondage of the fabric body. He insists that real endurance comes from
physical discipline and suffering. He stresses on voluntary poverty and set a
private example as he endeavoured to spot himself with the foremost vulnerable,
marginalised and therefore the poorest. Gandhi's views on the importance of
Ends and Means He considers it as necessary for fostering the welfare of the
soul and therefore the happiness of the mass of individuals . He regards
voluntary poverty as an ethical and patriotic duty. Voluntary simplicity is required
to minimise the greed that exists among citizenry and sees greed because the
‘root of most of the main political problems. Voluntary suffering would purify
the soul and intellect. There are not any limits to non-violence’.
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