[I]t seems very difficult to deny that there may be a limit beyond which good distribution is too dearly purchased. I imagine that the remark fiat justitia ruat cœlum would be the denial of this possibility. But I am not sure that anyone would maintain this maxim unless he felt confident that the world is so constituted that the heavens never will fall if justice be done.
(C. D. Broad, "On the Function of False Hypotheses in Ethics," The International Journal of Ethics 26 [April 1916]: 377-97, at 389)
Note from KBJ: Absolutist deontologists hold that certain acts (such as lying, torturing, contraceiving, committing adultery, and killing innocent human beings) are wrong, no matter how much evil will be prevented by performing them. Here are two absolutist slogans: (1) "One must not do evil that good may come"; (2) "Fiat justitia ruat cœlum" (Let right/justice be done, though the heavens should fall). Broad is having fun at the absolutist deontologist's expense. He is saying that absolutist deontologists aren't sincere, i.e., that they don't really believe what they say. Or rather, they believe what they say, but only because they also believe that refraining from lying, torturing, contraceiving, committing adultery, killing innocent human beings, &c., will not, in fact, cause the heavens to fall.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 