A word for something that is immoral, but beneficial?


Is there a word for something that is immoral or unethical, but must be done since it is beneficial. For example you would use the word to describe something like this, "we must kill those who misbehave so that we may maintain peace and prosperity in the country". Or another good example is Dexter from the TV show Dexter, he kills people, but he kills them because they are bad people.



Answer



This is called a necessary evil (also known as the lesser of two evils). It is used to refer to a choice that is bad, but preferable to the alternative choice that is much worse.


In your example, you have 2 choices:



  1. Kill people who are violent criminals.

  2. Do not kill those violent criminals and allow them to continue to harm society.


Killing violent criminals could be considered immoral, but it can be considered a necessary evil since the alternative of letting them live and continue to harm society is worse.


There are even a lot of references on the Internet to Dexter as a "necessary evil".


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