Can immoral acts be justified by love?
Can Immoral Acts be Justified by Love? The first question that pops into my head is what immoral acts are we talking about here? Certainly there are varying degrees of immoral behavior.
I suppose that the short answer to this question is, sure! Anything can be justified, and depending upon the motivational level of the person asking the question, it's almost a certainty that the conceived immoral act will, in fact, be justified and done.
The question ought to be, should an immoral act be justified by love? That, I am afraid, is a question that simply cannot be answered universally.
When I was in my sophomore year in college, I took a required ethics class. I loved this class, but there was one test that I literally bombed. One of the questions on the test was "Try to prove that man must follow an objective good."
I couldn't answer that question because I personally do not believe man can be expected to follow an objective good. What is good for me is not necessarily what is good to you, or anyone else for that matter. Certainly there are rules we can agree on (most of us, I would guess). Most people would say that murder is wrong, but even some people will try to justify murder if it is a crime of passion. So if there are some few people who can even find room in their personal ethics for a murderer to be justified, how can we agree on anything with unanimity?
In my personal code of ethics, I try not to justify my actions when I know what I am doing is wrong. But I'll be damned if I'm going to change my personal code of ethics to match someone else's, because at that point they are no longer my ethics but someone else's.