  Be this as it may, it is important not to confuse means with ends. The end of perfectionist politics is the protection and promotion of objective goods and/or objectively valuable human lives. The question of where and how often the state should rely on indirect, rather than direct, measures to promote the good is a question within perfectionist political  theory.[18] Though nothing of much importance turns on it, one could categorize a view that holds that perfectionist political ends are, for contingent reasons, always best pursued indirectly as a genuine instance of perfectionism. Indeed, one can imagine a view that holds that perfectionist political ends will be best achieved if no state official accepts the perfectionist approach to politics. This would be an extreme limiting case—a self-effacing perfectionism, but perhaps a perfectionist theory of politics nonetheless. Alternatively, one might conclude that a perfectionism that always counseled its own rejection would not be worthy of the name.