50 Funny, Wholesome And Unhinged Acts That “Chaotic Good” People Did With Good Intentions In Mind

So does the end justify the means? Peter Singer, a moral philosopher and Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, says yes.

"I rejected and still reject the idea that there are some things that are always wrong, no matter what the consequences," he explains in an interview for NPR.

"I think that the consequences do determine what is right or wrong. And there are no moral absolutes where you must never do something in any imaginable circumstances." The chaotic goods would be delighted to hear this!

Philosopher Peter Singer has built his life around the idea that logic and calculation are better guides to moral behavior than feelings and intuitions.

Reason dictates that your suffering doesn't count for more than someone else's suffering. If you believe that all lives are equal — and most people say they do — you should make choices that limit the greatest amount of suffering, regardless of whether that suffering is your own, that of an animal in a factory farm, or that of a stranger halfway around the planet.

"I do think that the end justifies the means," Singer adds. "I think that that's the point, in a way, that, of course, bad ends don't justify means. And if the means involve harming people and there are other means that you could have taken, then you should take those other means."

"But if the only way to prevent something very bad happening is to do something which would itself be bad but not as bad as the very bad thing that you're trying to prevent happening, then you're justified in doing the lesser evil rather than allowing the greater evil to occur," the philosopher says.