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About this quote

What does it mean?
Some actions are inherently wrong and cannot be justified by their outcomes.
In plain terms
Certain means are always unacceptable.
What can you take from it?
Recognize moral limits that no goal can cross.

Where it applies

  • warfare
  • politics
  • personal choices

Putting it to work

  • set moral boundaries
  • refuse unethical methods

Questions to consider

  • What line will you not cross?

Another view

Utilitarians argue outcomes can justify difficult means.

More from Albert Camus

  1. There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action. This is called becoming a man.

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  2. There are no frontiers between the disciplines that man sets himself for understanding and loving. They interlock, and the same anxiety merges them.

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  3. The unbeliever cannot keep from thinking that men who have set at the center of their faith the staggering victim of a judicial error ought at least to hesitat…

    Permalink to quote #215

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