Means cannot be judged apart from the ends that give them meaning.

Evidence

One can no more judge the means without the end which gives it its meaning than he can detach the end from the means which defines it. Lynching a negro or suppressing a hundred members of the opposition are two analogous acts. Lynching is an absolute evil; it represents the survival of an obsolete civilization, the perpetuation of a struggle of races which has to disappear; it is a fault without justification or excuse. Suppressing a hundred opponents is surely an outrage, but it may have meaning and a reason; it is a matter of maintaining a regime which brings to an immense mass of men a bettering of their lot. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 136

Categorization

• BMF: The ends-justify-the-means casuistry here — contrasting lynching as absolute evil with party purges as possibly justified — echoes the logic in ‘Things Fall Apart’ where colonial acts are framed by their civilizing end, and the counter-logic the novel’s tragedy exposes.
• QUESTION: This is the most contested move in the chapter: does grounding means in ends here foreshadow how she’ll ground willing others’ freedom? Track whether it smuggles in the conclusion.
• XREF: connects to: Intention cannot be separated from act, as thought cannot be separated from its language.; No statute can be interpreted without attributing purpose to it. — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 880