Kevin's Watch

Supposing that some imperative sentences are justified (we'll use that word), which kind are? Allow that there are two general kinds:

• 1. Ones like, "Go right, go up, go left, go up, go up, go left, go up."
  2. Ones like, "Go to the store."

The first begin from "inside" the agent's POV, so to speak; the second assign a target towards which the agent aims. So the first correspond to a deontological ethical program; the second, a teleological one. In the first case, the means "justify" the ends (in the sense that the end we reach is just, if it happens to be at the end of the sequence). In the second, the ends "justify" the means (if we know e.g. that going to the store means going right, up, left, etc. then we can inferentially justify (1) by logical derivation from (2)).

Maybe both kinds might be here or there justifiable, in which case the debate over deontological vs. teleological ethics is misguided?