Quote Originally Posted by abadguy View Post
Ah, classic Paladin dilemma. If you're looking for a "RAW" answer, you can find it in Book of Exalted Deeds Pg 9, where this matter of Ends and Means is discussed quite a bit. Summarising, an evil act is an evil act. Just because it leads to a good end, it does not make the evil act any less evil.
True- the problem is, that not all killings, even of the Innocent, are explicitly Evil Acts.

Murder is specified as an Evil Act in BoVD (and FC2) but it's not defined in D&D- at least, not in terms of Killing the Innocent.

Thus- if killing the Innocent would be Murder (or Reckless Endangerment of Life, as mentioned in the second BoVD example) then it can qualify as an Evil Act.

But if it's not murder, then we end up in greyer territory.