Animal Farm - The End Justifed the Means

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Recommended: Point of view of power corruption in the animal farm

END – Achieve freedom from humans and be able to look after themselves

The means to get this was by Napoleon and Snowball taking charge and organizing the events in the other animals’ lives

JUSTIFY – To whom was justification needed?

- Other Animals

- Pigs

The animals believed that whatever the means, no matter how hard their lives would become, all would turn out for the best. Therefore, Squealer and Napoleon were able to justify this means to an end for them.

Napoleon and Squealer were happy and felt that the means was justified because they were advantaged over the others.

HOWEVER WAS IT JUSTIFIED?

Most people would say ‘no, the end does not justify the means because the pigs were cruel’. However the means can be justified because the animals knew what the means would be, and the end that they had accepted the means for did not include cruel pigs. They felt that as long as the end was good for everyone, the means was justified.

What the people mean when they say that ‘the end does not justify the means because the pigs are cruel’ is that they don’t like how the end that all the animals were looking forward to did not eventuate. This didn’t happen because there were in actual fact two ends, not one. Both the pigs and the other animals felt that the means had been justified, but unbeknown to the other animals, the pigs had a different goal.

The means of giving Napoleon absolute power to let all animals have freedom and the ability to look after themselves was justified, however, unfortunately, due to the power which corrupted him, Napoleon never let this end get achieved. Napoleon changed the purpose for which this means was to be used. It is the pigs’ end of benefiting themselves only and dominating the other animals that does not justify the means. It is this end that people refer to when they do not agree with this statement, because this end is not a good end.

Of course, the pigs thought that their end was good, but it wasn’t because they only wanted to advantage a minority and didn’t care about the other animals. It wasn’t enough for them that they succeeded in living comfortably, everyone else had to fail and struggle to live.

The means

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