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justify |
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justify something by something to try to explain why something needs doing or why it is acceptable to do something. You cannot justify violence by quoting proverbs. Your action was totally justified by the circumstances. justify something to someone to explain something to someone and show why it is necessary. Please try to justify this to the voters. I can justify your action to no one. The end justifies the means. Prov. You can use bad or immoral methods as long as you accomplish something good by using them. (Not everyone agrees with this idea.) Lucy got money for the orphanage by embezzling it from the firm where she worked. "The end justifies the means," she told herself. The politician clearly believed that the end justifies the means, since he used all kinds of nefarious means to get elected. The end justifies the means. something that you say which means that in order to achieve an important aim, it is acceptable to do something bad Unfortunately, we'll have to cut down the forest to make space for the golf course, but I feel the end justifies the means. How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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If p is a claim that can be justified only by an appeal to some religious authority or tradition, which does not play the same justificatory role for others, then according to the Principle of Political Legitimacy the religious person has no right to expect the adoption of p on the constitutional level. That is not to say that those individuals who carried out the acts escaped with consciences untouched, but the philosophical assumptions which served as justificatory premises for those acts were not compromised in the process. To argue that the justificatory practices of a community are inadequate is simply to admit that there is always the possibility of "getting beyond our present practices in the direction of future practices" (61) or that "some day we may have ways of talking about X that we cannot now imagine" (108). |
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