I
don't like putting this in terms of goals. That's way too teleological
for me.
I think in terms of rights, not goals or outcomes. We could say
that protecting rights is the goal, but that might be misleading.
It is easy to fall into the habit of speaking in a way that
suggests that the goal or outcome is the only thing that counts and
that our choice of means is justified by achieving the outcome. I
don't believe that. I believe that the whole purpose of recognizing
individual rights is to put constraints on the means that can be used
to achieve outcomes, some of which might be morally quite good, but
still unjust.
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