Ethics: The Tragedy of Good Intentions

I was thinking- is it okay to be cruel to somebody if it's to protect them from something even worse?

Imagine this: two brothers separated as kids. The older one, went on to live a dangerous life working to protect the lives of others. The other brother lived a normal one until the day he could work with his brother again.

Say the brothers were able to work together again- you think they'd be happy to see each other. The older brother wasn't happy though, he was angry that his brother chose this line of work. He was angry because the person he wanted to protect the most was his brother, and now he couldn't.

So the older brother denied they were related. He said, "I don't recall having a brother." He said this over and over, and was just an awful person. Believing that by doing this, he'd make his younger brother leave their line of work.

But from the younger brother's point of view- he thought that he wasn't strong enough for his brother to approve of him. He thought that if he worked harder, and harder, and made it to his brother's level- then his older brother would finally acknowledge him.

The younger brother worked so hard- and he made it to the front lines along with his brother. The older brother, still wanting to protect the younger one, was still an awful person, there was still time to back out and go to a normal life.

And then it happened. The younger brother had been hurt so badly there was no recovering. The older brother had been right there to see it happen, he sat there silently, holding his brother. But on the inside he was screaming, No, no, you can't die like this! Get back up!

He wanted his beloved younger brother to have a normal life, so he was an awful person to him. But what his good intentions did, was teach the younger brother that he had to try to be good enough.

The older brother was cruel, but he had good intentions.

But those good intentions led to his brother, the one he wanted to protect, to die.

They were two sides of the same desperate coin: one dying to be seen, and the other killing his own heart to keep his brother invisible and safe.

So, I ask: is it okay to be cruel if you have good intentions?