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BDR
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icon A small philosophical thought.. (+2)  
Abstraction: The result of using one means over another means is just as important as (if not moreso than) the end itself.

Somewhat more concretely: If you use a bad means, and a result of using the bad means is that people get hurt, even if the bad means lead to a good end the resulting situation is worse than using a good means to reach a good end. The only time when the results of two different means do not impact the final value beyond the effect of the end itself is when they are completely equivalent (i.e. no one is hurt, no one feels like something is wrong or bad about the means used, etc.).

The most concrete way I can think to put this: Let's say you have to build a city. Let's also say you've got two main choices on how to do this; bulldoze a forest and build there, or build on a flat spot farther away from the river the forest is around but which won't result in deforestation. If you destroy the forest, and one of your engineers is saddened at the loss, you have a fundamentally worse situation than you would if you built further away and no one paid the extra distance from water any mind. If you build the city 'over there' and everyone is agitated/upset/pissed because of the water issues, you have a worse situation than you would if you bulldozed the forest and no one cared about the result beyond the easy access to water (not saying that it's a good situation, mind; just better than one where everyone hates the result in a way).

The way I see this is a possible way to solve the eternal "Do the ends justify the means?" question: If it works, the answer might be "Yes, but only if the results of the means are justified as well as the ends." Of course, it may not work, but that's why I'm hoping I can be shown why it doesn't (if it doesn't ;)) by you smart people here. And if it does.. well, my ego can always use a good boosting. :P
06-07-2007 at 07:59 AM
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Nillo
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (+1)  
I'm not a philosopher, but to me the "ends" cover everything that results from the "means", not just the effect you were trying to get. So in your example, the choice that leads to deforestation has worse ends (if you value the ecosystem, that is). By my definitions, the "results of the means" are the same thing as the "ends".

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06-07-2007 at 08:30 AM
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eytanz
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (0)  
I agree with Nillo's interpretation of the saying - "the ends" cover all the results, not just the intended ones. Which means that when asking, in hindsight, "did the ends justify the means", we need to consider everything.

What is more important is that when we are planning things, it is important to be mindful of all the possible results of our actions. That's of course a much harder question - it's not always easy - and sometimes impossible - to predict exactly everything that results from your actions.

What that means is that "the ends justify the means" is debatable mostly in a historical context, where to a large extent the ends are fixed. It's still not straightforward, by the way - there's no objective measure for "justified" - and in fact, then people usually debate whether "the end justifies the means", they usually do consider all the results, but still disagree on what can be justified and what not (for an example of how often it's not clear-cut, consider the following: if a government bombs a small village where 50% of the people are terrorists and 50% are innocents, and it looks like that by killing the terrorists they prevented the killings of many other people, were they justified to kill the innocents?)

However, more importantly, when evaluating future actions, saying "the ends justify the means" is only valid if you can show that you considered all the ends. And usually, you don't know what they are - so the question really becomes "do the probabilities of possible ends justify the means?" which is a different question.

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06-07-2007 at 01:19 PM
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Yellow_Mage
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (0)  
I find hindsight a beautful and impractical thing.

Also reminds me of morals vs. law or ethics.

Also to a lesser extent reminds me of, "Do you stay safe, or follow your heart?"

You perform the 'bad' action.

The problem with said event or action that, "the end justify the means..." if the said bad action is still in disagrement, and things get worse before they get better, then most likely the end doesn't justify the means because the action wasn't articulated or properly explained to other people for them to have the same postive outlook on the future/viewpoint as you.

If (enough) people were convinced, then the means was necessary. Such a thing is always deemed as necessary, or indirectly point out that it's necessary, and not an option.

What with Eytanz is saying, I find the saying "the end justify the means" is rather frivolous saying when it's out of historical context. It has some use in hypothetical context which this is.

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06-07-2007 at 05:46 PM
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Mattcrampy
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (0)  
I've wondered, on occasion, how we decide when an action's "bad". I think generally we assume that 'bad' people do 'bad' things and 'good' people do 'good' things and there are some actions that are clearly seen as 'good' or 'bad'. (This isn't how I see evil as working, incidentally: I tend to think of evil as an unwillingness to acknowledge boundaries of behaviour.)

So then if someone had to see, say, the ethical treatment of animals, one could determine how righteous that cause was by looking at its adherents, who unfortunately are often willing to do 'whatever it takes' for their cause, including many actions that are clearly objectionable or morally questionable such as throwing paint on people, erecting graphic billboards and conducting night-time raids on businesses. So then the end doesn't justify the means because how worthy your goal is is inversely proportional to how many boundaries you cross to reach it.

This is, I discover, very much like your solution but with some extra semantics: that the actions that one takes to reach the end affect the end itself.

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06-08-2007 at 02:55 AM
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (+1)  
BDR wrote:
(cut)
"Do the ends justify the means?"
(cut)
"Yes, but only if the results of the means are justified as well as the ends."
(cut)
I'm going to use substitution to solve this.

{Do the ends justify the means?
{Yes, but only if the results of the means are justified as well as the ends.

the results of means = the means
Now we get:

{Do the ends justify the means?
{Yes, but only if the the means are justified as well as the ends.

So, basically, you say no.

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06-08-2007 at 06:58 AM
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silver
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (+1)  
I disagree with your substitution. I'd say "the results of the means = the ends" but not "the results of the means = the means".


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06-08-2007 at 07:14 AM
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eytanz
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (0)  
And even if you disagree that "the results of the means = the ends", I think "the results of the means" = "the means" is an invalid substitution.

BDR's original point, even though it is based on a misinterpretation of what "The ends" are supposed to be, is that there are two types of results: desired ones (which he calls "the ends") and undesired ones (which he calls "the results of the means"). "The means" remain, under his interpretation, the method in which you attain the results.

It's pretty clear that the undesired results are not the same thing as the methods. This is regardless of whether you use the phrase "the ends" to include only the desired results like BDR, or all the results, like the rest of us do.

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06-08-2007 at 12:20 PM
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b0rsuk
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (+1)  
Semantics.

There are cockroaches in my house !

I'll drop a hydrogen bomb on my house !

The means are justified, because I only wanted to kill cockroaches. My goal was to kill the cockroaches, so death of all humans inside doesn't count. Killing the humans may be unfortunate, but it's just results of the means. I would drop the hydrogen bomb anyway.

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06-08-2007 at 12:50 PM
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eytanz
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (0)  
b0rsuk wrote:
Semantics.

Well, I am a semanticist. And this this a thread that, to a large degree, discusses a phrase and its meaning, making it a semantic problem. So semantics are the correct way to approach it.

Anyway, I fail to see your point. BDR's point is that the phrase "the end justifies the means" doesn't make sense *unless* the undesirable results are also considered. What most people in this thread have pointed out is that they are already included in the original phrase.

So, I can't see what your hydrogen bomb example is meant to show, and certainly I can't see how it shows that your substitution above is in any way relevant.

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06-08-2007 at 01:20 PM
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Mattcrampy wrote:

So then if someone had to see, say, the ethical treatment of animals, one could determine how righteous that cause was by looking at its adherents, who unfortunately are often willing to do 'whatever it takes' for their cause, including many actions that are clearly objectionable or morally questionable such as throwing paint on people, erecting graphic billboards and conducting night-time raids on businesses. So then the end doesn't justify the means because how worthy your goal is is inversely proportional to how many boundaries you cross to reach it.


I'm not sure if I fully understand what you're saying here, Matt, but I think I have to object to the implication that evil performed in the name of a good cause makes the cause itself less good in an absolute sense (although it may well diminish the public sympathy for that cause).

Let's assume that I have a goal that is by definition good. There are any number of ways I can attempt to achieve that goal, but the only one that I can think of involves performing some significantly bad acts. If I do that in order to achieve my goal, it doesn't change the validity of the goal, but it does certainly affect the total effect of my efforts.

What people seem to be dancing around a bit is that the whole consideration is an economic issue -- a big utility function. If performing a certain action generates this much utility for these people at the expense of this much utility for others, it should be possible for a given person to determine whether the net effect of an action is positive or negative. Where things get difficult, however, is in the realization that not everyone possesses the same utility function, nor do they attach the same weight to other people's utility functions.

In other words, an action may have a positive effect in my own frame of reference but a negative effect in someone else's (if it makes me happy and you unhappy, I may not particularly care about your happiness and so it would be net positive for me). But part of society is forming a common frame of reference by which these things can be judged. And it's really when viewed in the context of the common frame of reference that you start to be able to discuss the concept of 'good' and 'evil'.

Of course, societies are also different from place to place, and you again have a larger frame of reference by which one needs to judge the effects of societies.

Of course, I could just be blathering.

Josh

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06-08-2007 at 01:43 PM
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silver
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (0)  
jbluestein wrote:
Let's assume that I have a goal that is by definition good.

While I'm all about the point of logic being "going from assumptions you call true, to conclusions that follow them," I'm going to temporarily ignore that and wonder if the definition of good that I or most people use permits any goal to be good in and of itself. My usual definition of good applies only to actions, not to intentions/goals.

Where I differ with the dictionary is that my definition of good _requires_ a recipient. If it were up to me I would replace the word "good" with the word "goodfor", so that the sentence "feeding my cat is good" would be nonsense, and would have to be phrase "feeding my cat is goodfor my cat". But my variances from the dictionary are irrelevant to my central question: can 'good' be applied to anything but verbsnouns describing actions?


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06-08-2007 at 01:52 PM
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silver wrote:
jbluestein wrote:
Let's assume that I have a goal that is by definition good.

While I'm all about the point of logic being "going from assumptions you call true, to conclusions that follow them," I'm going to temporarily ignore that and wonder if the definition of good that I or most people use permits any goal to be good in and of itself. My usual definition of good applies only to actions, not to intentions/goals.


I see your point, I think.

I would suggest that calling a goal 'good' implies that it's good for somebody. And really, it's the achievement of that goal or the benefit that accrues to that somebody that I would call the good thing.

'Equal rights for Hittites' is something one might consider to be a good goal. The struggle to achieve that goal is, by my definition, 'good'. (Tempered, perhaps, by the methodology I employ.) Who is it good for? Well, Hittites, sure, but also good for society. Can that be argued against? You bet! If it couldn't, it probably wouldn't be an issue.

Many of the struggles over major issues these days isn't really between 'good' and 'evil', but between different perceptions of what 'good' actually is. Which probably makes things harder.

Hmmm. I can't tell from rereading whether I addressed your issue or went off on my own tangent. That's probably a bad sign.

Josh





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06-08-2007 at 02:31 PM
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I would contend that it's not usually possible to assume that a particular goal is 'good' purely by virtue of what it is, and that it's this that makes one's actions in service of that goal important. Going back to the Hittite example, if a group claiming to represent Hittites are willing to, say, kidnap heads of state in order to force them to give equal time to Hittites, the question that then gets asked is, well, if this is how Hittites decide to solve their problems, do we particularly want to give them the same social status as the rest of society? Equal time for Hittites is certainly a noble goal on the face of it, but if you manage to convince people that all Hittites - not just yourselves, but all Hittites - are willing to kidnap heads of state in order to further their goals, then you've just made equal time for Hittites into a bad goal.

In reality, there would be some form of Hittite advocacy group which would be working overtime to make clear that these people only think they represent all Hittites, and the silent majority disapprove of their actions.

Of course, that's assuming properties of a person that one can't change, like being a Hittite. Equal time for nutjobs is a little harder to justify.

I'm also implying that there is no cause so just, and conversely no cause so depraved, that it cannot be tainted by someone doing evil (or good) in its name.

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06-09-2007 at 05:33 AM
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eytanz
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silver wrote:
My usual definition of good applies only to actions, not to intentions/goals.

Mattcrampy wrote:
I'm also implying that there is no cause so just, and conversely no cause so depraved, that it cannot be tainted by someone doing evil (or good) in its name.

I'm ignoring a bunch of interesting discussion above to point out something here - both Matt's statement and silver's statement disagree with the general principle that "The ends justify the means", but in different ways.

Matt is saying - now matter what the ends, sometimes the means are such that they cannot be justified. This is the issue that BDR tried to address in the beginning of the thread; it's arguable that someone who looks at the kidnap scenario and decides that the end justifies the means is not correctly applying the proverb to the scenario, since they are not considering all the results. Or, arguably, they are, and there are some means that cannot be justified, even if using them has only positive results.

silver, on the other hand, is saying something totally different - for him, it's meaningless to say "the ends justify the means", since the ends don't have a moral value. It doesn't matter how you analyze a particular situation - the ends are irrelevant.

This may well be oversimplifying their positions, but I wanted to highlight this because this difference shows another reason why people can't agree on moral judgements - it's not just that different people have different ideas of good and evil, but that they have different ideas about what it is needs to be judged as moral to begin with. This means that if they debate good and evil, they are unlikely to ever reach a common ground, unless they address this question first.

In other words, sorry, BDR, but no - the problem with "the end justifies the means" cannot be solved by anything as simple as just being careful to consider all the results...

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06-09-2007 at 12:32 PM
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It's alright, eytanz. Learning what questions have to be asked is often just as important as trying to come up with answers to them.

I'd have more comments, but I have to reread some of this stuff and think on it.

EDIT: I have a thought on silver's position - when you say that 'goodfor' is the only way you understand good, and thus intentions and ends/goals can't be good in your opinion, I have to wonder if this idea of 'goodfor' might not still work with ends/goals. For example, someone who emphasizes justice as a good to work towards when pressured will certainly assert that justice is good for everyone, or someone who emphasizes animal rights will say that such rights are good for the animals. It's just assumed that these things are 'goodfor' someone or something, and the question that usually pops up is whether they're good for enough people, or if they're good for anyone but you, or if they're really good for anyone/anything, and so on and so forth. How I understand the idea that intentions can be good is that you are intending for something good to happen (to someone or something); whether it does or not depends on what it is your intentions lead you to do. I suppose 'goodfor' wouldn't really help with that a lot, but I think there's still a chance of it being used there. My best guess is that, if you were to save a child from a burning house because you intended to save them and thus were sufficiently moved to do so successfully, then your intentions were at least 'goodfor' moving you towards an action that was very 'goodfor' the child. A bit straining, perhaps, but I think it's possible to see where I'm going with this.

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06-09-2007 at 08:30 PM
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icon Re: A small philosophical thought.. (0)  
You misunderstand, slightly - the idea of 'goodfor' is not causal to my defining 'good' to only apply to actions. Those are separate issues - each potentially deserving of a separate discussion entirely. I mentioned 'goodfor' as an aside, and I believe it should be left as an aside in this thread.

---

Moving back to eytanz' point -

I say only actions can have moral value.

This is because I do not believe I can really know your intentions. I have no real access to your mental state. I have some access to your actions (provided I witness them or believe the witnesses (possibly just yourself)).

To try to save a child from drowning is (usually) 'good'. To intend to try to save a child from drowning is neither good nor evil unless you actually act on it. And then the quality of your actions determine the good -- if you try to save the child by jumping in, grabbing the child with minimal force, bringing the child to the surface, helping it resume breathing, then swimming it to the nearest shore; then that was very different from, say, trying to save the child from drowning by shooting it.

---

This _might_ be an aside, or this might be whole point, but it's also the case that it's nearly impossible to justify means with "ends" because _the 'end' never comes_. Life isn't a storybook.

---

It might also be worth noting that I've never officially studied philosophy. I've read everything by Daniel Dennett and a little Aristotle, and that's it. My background is in math/logic and computers.

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06-09-2007 at 10:50 PM
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And I've been saying that ends don't have an intrinsic moral value, but we find it useful for them to have one, so their value is approximately derived from the actions used to fulfill it.

And the only philosophy I've read is on modernity, which has little to do with this. (Although its moral relativism is arguably part of this question.)

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06-10-2007 at 06:13 AM
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Mattcrampy wrote:
And I've been saying that ends don't have an intrinsic moral value, but we find it useful for them to have one, so their value is approximately derived from the actions used to fulfill it.
It's legal to kill someone in order to protect one's own life or the life of another. By what you're saying self-defense is morally wrong.

Just an aside on "good" and "evil". In general usage "good" applies to one's own actions; "evil" applies to the actions of those one dislikes. I could give numerous examples from US foreign policy, but this really isn't the right forum.

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06-10-2007 at 01:25 PM
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KevG wrote:
Mattcrampy wrote:
And I've been saying that ends don't have an intrinsic moral value, but we find it useful for them to have one, so their value is approximately derived from the actions used to fulfill it.
It's legal to kill someone in order to protect one's own life or the life of another. By what you're saying self-defense is morally wrong.

"legal" =/= "morally right", you know.

Just an aside on "good" and "evil". In general usage "good" applies to one's own actions; "evil" applies to the actions of those one dislikes.

Well, that's nice and cynical, but what is your point? I mean, the discussion above is not operating on that level. And acknowledging that morality may not be absolute does not equal claiming moral superiority.

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06-10-2007 at 02:17 PM
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The "defending one's family" one also applies to things like "giving your family things that you would personally want" and things like that. On balance, an act that would be "evil", killing another, is outweighed by the way one treats their family.

Of course, the morality of the act of killing the intruder depends very much on their intentions as well, as you are preventing an intruder from carrying out several "evil" acts on your family.

Not to mention that, in defending one's family by shotgunning an intruder in the face, it will leave psychological scars on the survivor, not to mention make the neighbours talk.

So yes, you're right in identifying places where there is a whole lot of gooey ambiguity. Self-defense can get pretty grey (which is probably why it's used so often to give "depth" to good-guy characters in dramas).

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06-10-2007 at 02:59 PM
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eytanz wrote:
"legal" =/= "morally right", you know.
Of course. I assumed anyone reading my statements would know that also.

Well, that's nice and cynical, but what is your point?
Like I said, it was mainly an aside. silver referenced the dictionary definition and I thought it worth pointing out that in actual usage the terms tend to be loaded; much more than the equivalent "right" and "wrong".
Mattcrampy wrote:
Self-defense can get pretty grey.
Yep, it's an extemely grey area. But, it's a case where the means are purely justified by the end. The end does have an intrinsic moral value and can't be judged purely by the means used to achieve it.

I believe that, in general, the end really does justify the means. In the case of inappropriate means being used, I suspect that the problem is more likely to lie with a person's over-valuing of their end rather than a problem with the actual principle.
06-10-2007 at 03:33 PM
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I've also long been in the camp where the sum total of consequences must be considered as "the end", not just the particular goal you were shooting for.

I read The Prince 2-3 years ago. To me, it seems the counsel there was solely about how to acquire and maintain power over people (as a monarch, etc.), and had nothing to do with seeking or promoting moral goodness. So, if power is your aim, and you kill people to get it, then the end result is that you have power, and maybe some people who opposed you are now dead, which also doesn't detract from your goal, so you win!

Ugh.

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06-14-2007 at 12:25 AM
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I thought the irony behind "Machiavellian" was that it wasn't what Machiavelli was actually saying?

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06-14-2007 at 02:00 AM
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Caravel Forum : Other Boards : Anything : A small philosophical thought.. (Looking for verifcation, contradiction, or thoughts in general)
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