Quote Originally Posted by Chijinda View Post
Oddly enough the Star Wars EU has a pretty good quote for this sort of thing:

"There are times when the end justifies the means. But when you build an argument based on a whole series of such times, you may find that you've constructed an entire philosophy of evil."
Nice.

Yeah, my view (and I stress this because people have differing views of alignment) is that "by any means necessary" cannot be a Good philosophy in D&D for the simple fact that including Evil means will eventually and inevitably corrupt the doer.

I'm not saying that an Evil act can never be done for Good, but almost anyone who lives their life that way will gradually lose sight of the truth of their actions, the justifications giving way over time to delusions.

Just look at fictional characters in the media. There are many, many examples of villains with good intentions; what makes them villains are the things they do to reach their vaunted goals.