Goals or boundaries?

Goals are what we seek to pursue, boundaries are what we must keep within. Or are they?

How can we judge whether what we do — from the most undistinguished little habit to the most momentous decision — is ‘good’ or ‘bad’? To do so, we need to relate our actions to two concepts: what we aim to achieve (goals we pursue), and what we should avoid (boundaries we should not cross). Behaviour that brings us closer to a goal is good, while if it makes it more distant or harder to realize, it is bad. Similarly, staying within the necessary boundaries is good, breaching them is bad. Intuitively, we would expect the goal to be pursued to be our first concern (otherwise we get nowhere!), with the need to take adequate account of boundaries to avoid excesses and unintended consequences coming second. But is that always how we approach things?

The upper hand of boundary conditions

The Belgian institute for Traffic Safety, VIAS, is running a campaign under the slogan “ All for zero “. This is not just a concept, but an actual stated goal: zero traffic fatalities by 2050. Imagine that, until yesterday, there were no cars or other motor vehicles in our world. Transporting goods and people would be done with vehicles using our own, or draught animals’ muscle power. Today, we would suddenly…