Truth and the Way

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other’s purpose. Any such action, which may be good or evil from a
utilitarian viewpoint, is a reproductive action (janaka kamma) with
a willed effect (vipāka). It is a means to an end and, therefore, not
complete in itself. It is the end in view which gave the impetus to,
and which became identified with, the means. In this sense, the end
was the means, that is, the condition (paccaya-hetu) which made
the, action reproductive.
But this is not so if considered from another viewpoint that
the means is merely instrumental to the effect without causing it
in the ultimate sense; it may be fertilising, but not producing it,
unintentional and incidental. Such an action is done in a mechanical
or purely reactionary way; and here the means and the end are not
identical in any way. Neither of these can be called right action. For,
an action, the end of which has become the motive of its arising,
is incomplete in itself; it is projected into the future by purposeful
striving. And the action, in which the end is dissociated from the
means in a purely reactionary way, is a mechanical action, or rather
a reaction.
There is still another possible combination in which the means
becomes the end; for example, in some people who make of the act
of eating (which is a means of preserving life) the chief purpose of
existence: they live to eat, instead of eating to live. They confuse
the instrumental conditions (nissaya) with the principal condition
(uttama hetu). It does not require any explanation to to understand
that this too cannot be right action. And yet it is this type of action
which is most frequently indulged in not only in its more gross forms
such as the slaughter of cattle for the sake of taste-satisfaction, or
the violation of another’s marital rights for the sake of one’s own
gratification, but also in the more refined and generalised actions
which may even be legalised, such as capital punishment. All such
actions are misfitting means towards a wrong end. And abstinence
therefrom becomes in a way right action.