The Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) is an influential non-consequentialist principle positing a role for intention in affecting the moral permissibility of some actions. In particular, the DDE focuses on the intend/foresee distinction, the core claim being that it is sometimes permissible to bring about as a foreseen but unintended side-effect of one’s action some harm it would have been impermissible to aim at as a means or as an end, all else being equal. This article (...) explores the meaning and application of the DDE along with current debates over the nature of the intend/foresee distinction and its moral significance. How is the line between intended effects and merely foreseen but unintended side-effects to be drawn, and how are problem cases best handled? What is an appropriate methodology for debating the tenability of the DDE? How might the DDE interact with other non-consequentialist principles, and how might it be modified to capture other related factors (resulting perhaps in a Doctrine of Triple Effect) or to avoid certain problem cases? Does the DDE make permissibility turn on the actual intentions of particular agents, as critics such as Thomson and Scanlon assume, or is the role of intention more abstract? (shrink)

Abstract: This essay consists of some clarifying remarks on the doctrine of double effect (DDE). After providing a contemporary formulation of the doctrine we put special emphasis on the distinction between those aspects of an action plan that are intended and those that are merely foreseen (the I/F distinction). Making use of this distinction is often made difficult in practice because salient aspects of the action plan exhibit a felt “closeness” to one another that is difficult (...) if not impossible to articulate with the precision we might like. The essay goes on to examine an especially adroit criticism of DDE best articulated by J.J. Thomson. We conclude with a brand new double effect case (new to the philosophical literature anyway) taken from medicine and Roman Catholic pastoral ministry. (shrink)

Few moral theorists would disagree that the fundamental principle of morality – perhaps of practical rationality itself – is “ Do good and avoid evil. ” Yet along with such an uncontroversial principle comes a major question: Can you fulfi l both halves satisfactorily across your life as a moral agent? We all have opportunities to perform acts that do good with no accompanying evil, but these are not as common as we might think. We can avoid evil by doing (...) nothing, but doing nothing implies doing no good either. Clearly the fundamental principle does not require that you go about your life doing good on any and every possible occasion any more than that you sit on your hands and abstain from action out of fear of doing evil. The principle tells us to avoid evil, not to refrain from ever causing it. And the simple fact is that the complexities of life make it inevitable that, much of the time when we go about doing good, we will also be doing evil. Further, they are such that sometimes we can avoid evil only at the cost of not performing a good act which reasonable people would regard as at least permissible, if not sometimes obligatory. So how, as rational, morally responsible agents, are we to satisfy the fundamental principle in an adequate, harmonious fashion, given life ’ s exigencies? This is where the so - called ‘ doctrine of double effect ’ comes into play. Some call it a doctrine, infl uenced by the fact that Catholic ethicists and moral theologians have, since the Middle Ages, codifi ed and ratifi ed it as something akin to a doctrine of Catholic moral philosophy. Others call it the ‘ principle of double effect, ’ though it breaks down into a set of principles unifi ed by a common idea. Yet other writers see it simply as a kind of reasoning about certain types of hard case in ethics. Whatever the preferred nomenclature, the DDE, as I will call it here, is – for all its critics and the diffi culties it faces – a keystone of sound moral thinking, without which the fundamental principle would remain nothing but a high ideal with little consistent applicability. So consider a simple example.. (shrink)

It is widely held by moral philosophers that J.J. Thomson’s “Loop Variant,” a version of the Trolley Problem first presented by her in 1985, decisively refutes the Doctrine of Double Effect as the right explanation of our moral intuitions in the various trolley-type cases.See Bruers and Brackman, “A Review and Systematization of the Trolley Problem,” Philosophia 42:2 : 251–269; T. Scanlon, Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame ; Peter Singer, “Ethics and Intuitions,” Journal of Ethics 9:314 : 331–352, (...) p. 340; Matthew Liao, “The Loop Case and Kamm’s Doctrine of Triple Effect,” Philosophical Studies 146:2 : 223–231; H. Sauer, “Morally Irrelevant Factors: What’s Left of the Dual Process Model of Moral Cognition?,” Philosophical Psychology 25:6 : 783–811, p. 797. Frances Kamm suggests the DDE can be saved from the objection, but only by radically revising it into a doctrine of “Triple Effect” (In .. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to present some of the differences and similari- ties in various versions of the double effect principle. The following formulations will be analyzed: that of Thomas Aquinas and two contemporary ap- proaches, namely those of Mangan and Boyle. It will be shown that the presented modern versions vary significantly and the distinction between their intended and only predicted effects is far from clear. As a result, the different contemporary for- mulations of DDE (...) lead to contradictory conclusions, with some justifying what the others condemn. Moreover, it will be demonstrated that, unlike Aquinas, contem- porary authors mostly concentrate on unintentionality condition while neglecting the proportionality requirement. So, unlike Aquinas, they only take into account a narrow scope of cases, where the evil effect occurs with certainty, which leads to a complicated and intricate hypothetical intention test like Donagan’s. It will be shown that, besides its theoretical indistinctness, DDE lead to serious pragmatic risks. It can be quite easily misused as a kind of psychological mechanism to protect self-esteem from a sense of guilt since wrong-doing is treated as merely a predicted unintended effect. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect has been defended not only as a test of character but also as a criterion of wrongness for action. This paper criticises one attempt to justify the doctrine in the latter capacity. The justification, first proposed by Warren Quinn, traces the wrongness of intending harm as a means to the objectionable features of certain reasons for making this our intention. As I argue, however, some of the actions which seem to us (...) to be permissible, and whose permissibility the DDE is supposed to explain, can be performed for these objectionable reasons. Since the proposed justification implies that any action is wrong when performed for these reasons, it renders the DDE incapable of accommodating the very intuitions about action which its proponents would have it explain. (shrink)

Producing food on a large scale without killing any animals seems currently impossible. This poses a challenge for deontological positions that involve a prohibition against killing sentient creatures: it seems that according to these positions omnivorous, vegetarian and vegan diets all rely on food produced in impermissible ways. In order to meet this challenge, deontologists might introduce consequentialist considerations into their theories, for example some principles that effectively require to kill as few animals as possible. This is the kind of (...) strategy Tom Regan has pursued. However, we argue that the challenge for deontological positions on the ethics of food production can also be met by invoking a prominent deontological principle. The doctrine of double effect, with its distinction between bringing about harm intentionally and bringing about harm as a merely foreseen consequence of one’s action, enables us to see a morally significant difference between the various ways to produce food other than the number of animals killed. In this paper we will review some of these ways using Warren S. Quinn’s version of the DDE and show that a more thoroughgoing deontological ethics of food production than Regan’s classic theory is possible. We thereby present a novel way of evaluating modes of food production. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect has been challenged by the claim that what an agent intends as a means may be limited to those effects that are precisely characterized by the descriptions under which the agent believes that they are minimally causally necessary for the production of other effects that the agent seeks to bring about. If based on so narrow a conception of an intended means, the traditional Doctrine of Double Effect becomes limitlessly (...) permissive. In this paper I examine and criticize Warren Quinn's attempt to reformulate the Doctrine in such a way that it retains its force and plausibility even if we accept the narrow conception of an intended means. Building on Quinn's insights, I conclude by offering a further version of the Doctrine that retains the virtues of Quinn's account but avoids the objections to it. I The key element in the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) is the claim that there is a stronger presumption against action that has harm to the innocent as an intended effect than there is against otherwise comparable action that causes the same amount of harm to the innocent as a foreseen but unintended effect. Since it is relatively uncontroversial that, except perhaps in cases involving desert, it is wrong to cause harm as an end in itself, the DDE is normally invoked to distinguish morally between harm that is intended as a means and harm that is considered a merely foreseen side-effect. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect is a moral principle that distinguishes between harm we cause as a means to an end and harm that we cause as a side-effect. As a purely descriptive matter, the DDE is well established that it describes a consistent feature of human moral judgment. There are, however, several rival theories of its psychological cause. I review these theories and consider their advantages and disadvantages. Critically, most extant psychological theories of the DDE (...) regard it as an accidental byproduct of cognitive architecture. This may provide philosophers with some reason to question its normative significance. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect is an ethical principle that can account for human judgment in moral dilemmas: situations in which all available options have large good and bad consequences. We have previously formalized \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {{DDE}}$$\end{document} in a computational logic that can be implemented in robots. \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {{DDE}}$$\end{document}, as an ethical principle for robots, is attractive for a number of (...) reasons: Empirical studies have found that \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {{DDE}}$$\end{document} is used by untrained humans; many legal systems use \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {{DDE}}$$\end{document}; and finally, the doctrine is a hybrid of the two major opposing families of ethical theories. In spite of all its attractive features, we have found that \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {{DDE}}$$\end{document} does not fully account for human behavior in many ethically challenging situations. Specifically, standard \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {{DDE}}$$\end{document} fails in situations wherein humans have the option of self-sacrifice. Accordingly, we present an enhancement of our \documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\mathcal {{DDE}}$$\end{document}-formalism to handle self-sacrifice; we end by looking ahead to future work. (shrink)

We typically assume that there is a difference between foreseeing an effect of one's voluntary action and intending the effect. Call the view that there is such a difference 'the Ordinary View'. My dissertation is a defense of the Ordinary View against two recent challenges. ;The first challenge to the Ordinary View I call "Holism". The upshot of the holist's position is that we intend all the foreseen effects of our voluntary actions. I begin by considering and arguing (...) against a couple of different versions of holism. ;The second challenge to the Ordinary View is made by Jonathan Bennett. Bennett argues that there is no unproblematic way to mark off effects of action which are intended as a means from effects which are merely foreseen. His conclusion is that the notion 'indended as a means' is incoherent. ;These challenges to the Ordinary View are of interest because they threaten to undermine the Doctrine of Double Effect which claims that whether an agent intends or merely foresees a harmful effect of action sometimes matters to the moral permissibility of performing the action. In response to Bennett, I first examine a view put forth by Warren Quinn. Quinn concedes to Bennett that the distinction between intended versus merely foreseen effects faces serious problems, but attempts to limit the ethical implications of Bennett's challenge by offering a replacement principle for DDE which he believes is not subject to Bennett's objection. I defend Quinn's replacement principle against certain recent attacks in the literature, but point out that Quinn's replacement principle really doesn't escape Bennett's objection. I then return to Bennett's objection and argue that it rests upon two false assumptions. I conclude that the Ordinary View withstands the two challenges. (shrink)

This paper claims as erroneous the current widespread representation of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) as primarily condemning as intrinsically bad actions involving intentional harm. The DDE's Four Conditions are in fact used solely for justifying certain intrinsically good actions with both intended good and unintended bad effects. Though contemporary writers assign a minor justificatory role to the DDE this is incompatible with their attribution to it of a primary prohibitive role. Not only is the conduct (...) cited by these writers as justifiable under the DDE so morally innocuous as to require no justification, but any attempt to justify it by appeal to the DDE leads to incoherence. We finally suggest reasons for this misinterpretation in current concerns with the structure of deontological moral theories. (shrink)

Civilian Immunity is the legal and moral protection that civilians enjoy against the effects of hostilities under the laws of armed conflict and according to the ethics of killing in war. Immunity specifies different permissibility conditions for directly targeting civilians on the one hand, and for harming civilians incidentally on the other hand. Immunity is standardly defended by appeal to the Doctrine of Double Effect. We show that Immunity's prohibitive stance towards targeting civilians directly, and its more (...) permissive stance towards harming them incidentally, can be defended without appealing to the DDE if agents suffer from overconfidence. Overconfidence is a cognitive bias that affects agents who are required to make decisions in the presence of significant uncertainty. (shrink)

In recent work, T.M. Scanlon has unsuccessfully challenged the doctrine of double effect (DDE). First, comparing actions reflecting faulty moral deliberations and involving merely foreseen harm with actions reflecting less faulty moral deliberations involving intended harm suggests that proponents of DDE do not confuse the critical and the deliberative uses of moral principles. Second, Scanlon submits that it is odd to say to a deliberating agent that the permissibility of the actions she ponders depends on the intention (...) with which she will act. I argue that this can be explained without appeal to the claim that intentions are irrelevant to permissibility. (shrink)

In replying to my article ‘An Error about the Doctrine of Double Effect’, Kaufman claims that the permission given by the four-condition Doctrine for certain mixed actions is merely complementary to an absolute prohibition—which he claims is the DDE's primary function. I point out again that in many cases this makes an appeal to the DDE's fourth condition not merely redundant but incoherent. Furthermore, his claim that I am a utilitarian maximizer, frustrated by a doctrine (...) prohibiting intentional harms, however great the net overall benefit, is based on a misrepresentation. I did not object to a candidate for justification under the DDE being rejected before reaching the fourth condition, only to its being accepted. (shrink)

Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) became the first state law to permit VAD in Australia under limited circumstances from June 2019. Before this, many palliative care physicians relied on the doctrine of double effect (DDE) to justify the use of pain relievers for terminally ill patients that were known to hasten death. The DDE claims that there is a morally significant difference between intending evil and merely foreseeing some bad side-effect will occur as a (...) result of one’s actions. This article argues that the legacy of the DDE is promoting inequitable access to VAD in Victoria due to the assumption that death represents an “evil” for the patient and that the intentions of physicians providing VAD cannot be trusted. The latter claim relies on two common objections to the DDE: the risk of “purifying the intentions” and the issue of “closeness” when evaluating moral acts under this theory. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect is a principle of crucial importance in law and medicine. In medicine, the principle is generally accepted to apply in cases where the treatment necessary to relieve pain and physical suffering runs the risk of hastening the patient’s death. More controversially, it has also been used as a justification for withdrawal of treatment from living individuals and physician-assisted suicide. In this paper, I will critique the findings of the controversial Victorian Civil and (...) Administrative Tribunal hearing Syme vs the Medical Board of Australia. In that hearing, Dr Rodney Syme, a urologist and euthanasia advocate, was defending his practice of prescribing barbiturates to terminally ill patients. Syme claimed that he prescribed the drugs with the intention of relieving their existential suffering and not to assist in suicide; he argued that the DDE could be applied. Pace VCAT, I argue that this is an illegitimate application of DDE. I argue that a close scrutiny of Syme’s actions reveals that, at the very least, he intended to give patients the option of suicide. He furthermore used what on a traditional definition of DDE would be considered a ‘bad’ means—the prescription of Nembutal—to achieve a ‘good’ end—the relief of suffering. The case demonstrates the crucial importance of analysing an agent’s ‘intention’ and the ‘effects’ of their actions when applying DDE. Ethicists and, indeed, the judiciary need to attend to the ethical complexities of DDE when they assess the applicability of DDE to end of life care. If they fail to do this, the doctrine risks losing its legitimacy as an ethical principle. (shrink)

A major challenge to the Doctrine of Double Effect is the concern that an agent’s intention can be identified in such a fine-grained way as to eliminate an intention to harm from a putative example of an intended harm, and yet, the resulting case appears to be a case of impermissibility. This is the so-called “closeness problem.” Many people believe that one can address the closeness problem by adopting Warren Quinn’s version of the DDE, call it DDE*, (...) which distinguishes between harmful direct agency and harmful indirect agency. In this paper, I first argue that Quinn’s DDE* is just as vulnerable to the closeness problem as the DDE is. Second, some might think that what we should therefore do is give up on intentions altogether and move towards some kind of non-state-of-mind, victim-based deontology. I shall argue against this move and explain why intentions are indispensable to an adequate nonconsequentialist theory. Finally, I shall propose a new way of answering the closeness problem. (shrink)

I focus on the question as to what rationale could possibly underlie the doctrine of double effect or related principles. I first briefly review the correct critiques of the claim that people who intend some evil as a means to a good must be “guided by evil,” and that this is allegedly always wrong. I then argue that Quinn’s claim that violations of the DDE express certain negative attitudes of the agent and that agents violating the DDE (...) must make an additional morally problematic presumption regarding their victims is mistaken. Tadros claims that an agent violating the means principle must force his victims to adopt his goals. I demonstrate that the difference Tadros tries to construe between an agent inflicting intended harm and an agent inflicting merely foreseen harm is non-existent. Sarch’s official rationale for the DDE also fails to distinguish harming as a means from side-effect harming, and reformulations of his rationale that suggest themselves run into severe problems. Walen’s defense of the means principle in terms of the “restricting claims principle” and Øverland’s appeal to “moral obstacles” are susceptible to counter-examples and appear to be question-begging. Recently, Walen has offered a revised formulation of his Restricting Claims Principle, claiming that it overcomes counter-examples and explains the means principle. I will argue that it contradicts the means principle and does not overcome the counter-examples. Thus I conclude that so far we are still left without a reasonable rationale for the DDE or related principles. (shrink)

Without taking a position on the overall justification of anti-doping regulations, I analyse the possible justification of Therapeutic Use Exemptions from such rules. TUEs are a creative way to prevent the unfair exclusion of athletes with a chronic condition, and they have the potential to be the least bad option. But they cannot be competitively neutral. Their justification must rest, instead, on the relevance of intentions to permissibility. I illustrate this by means of a set of thought experiments in which (...) only an athlete’s intentions vary. I argue that the Doctrine of Double Effect sheds some light on TUEs and illustrate this by applying different readings of the DDE to the thought experiment. This underpins a justification of anti-doping exemptions very different from the approach adopted by the World Anti-Doping Agency. I argue for three changes to bring TUEs in line with this understanding: rewriting of the regulations, transparency, and a greater role for athletes in determining what exemptions are allowed, and when. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of authors – such as Kershnar and Kelly, Steinhoff, and Scanlon – have criticized the doctrine of double effect (DDE) as incoherent, lacking an underlying rationale, or leading to counterintuitive conclusions. These critiques, however, rest on a failure to understand the DDE’s broader theoretical context and presuppositions. This paper aims to clarify and advance the debate regarding the DDE by, first, outlining a contemporary version of the broader normative theory (i.e. the Aristotelian-Thomistic (...) natural law tradition) within which the DDE finds its proper context, and explaining the rationale for the DDE within this context; second, clarifying the DDE’s proportionality condition to avoid common misinterpretations; and, third, showing how the DDE, when properly formulated and understood within the appropriate theoretical context, can withstand the recent criticisms that have been raised against it. (shrink)

According to the classical Doctrine of Double Effect, there is a morally significant difference between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm. Versions of DDE have been defended in a variety of creative ways, but there is one difficulty, the so-called “closeness problem”, that continues to bedevil all of them. The problem is that an agent's intention can always be identified in such a fine-grained way as to eliminate an intention to harm from almost any situation, including those (...) that have been taken to be paradigmatic instances in which DDE applies to intended harm. In this paper, we consider and reject a number of recent attempts to solve the closeness problem. We argue that the failure of these proposals strongly suggests that the closeness problem is intractable, and that the distinction between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm is not morally significant. Further, we argue that there may be a deeper reason why such attempts must fail: the rationale that makes the best fit with DDE, namely, an imperative not to aim at evil, is itself irredeemably flawed. While we believe that these observations should lead us to abandon further attempts to solve the closeness problem for DDE, we also conclude by showing how a related principle that is supported by a distinct rationale and avoids facing the closeness problem altogether nevertheless shares with DDE its most important features, including an intuitive explanation of a number of cases and a commitment to the relevance of intentions. (shrink)

The purpose of this note is to tidy up some matters concerning ascriptions of intention and the employment of the doctrine of double effect (henceforth DDE). I first argue that Jonathan Bennett’s efforts to show that DDE is a foolish doctrine are unsatisfactory. I then consider a puzzle of Mark Johnston’s that seems to pose a problem for the defender of DDE. I turn to possible solutions to the puzzle, criticize one, and then offer the one (...) I find most appealing. I then show how my proposal for employing DDE enables it to make some distinctions between courses of conduct without issuing foolish pronouncements about moral permissibility. (shrink)

Scanlon (2008) has argued that his theory of permissibility (STP) has more explanatory power than the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). I believe this claim is wrong. Borrowing Michael Walzer’s method of inquiry, I will evaluate the explanatory virtue of these accounts by their understanding of actual moral intuitions originated in historical cases. Practically, I will evaluate these accounts as they explain cases of hostage crises. The main question in this context is: is it permissible that nation-states (...) act with military force in order to liberate hostages, even if those actions put the lives of the hostages at risk? The first part of this paper has an operative reconstruction of the relevant theories. In the second section, two cases of hostage crises will be considered: the Moscow theater hostage crisis of 2002, and the Jaque Operation, which occurred in Colombia in 2008. Additionally, it will be shown that DDE explains these cases better than STP. Finally, this paper offers a critical analysis of Scanlon’s account of the explanatory power of both STP and DDE. (shrink)

There are different formulations of the doctrine of double effect, and sometimes philosophers propose “revisions” or alternatives, like the means principle, for instance. To demonstrate that such principles are needed in the first place, one would have to compare cases in which all else is equal and show that the difference in intuitions, if any, can only be explained by the one remaining difference and thus by the principle in question. This is not the methodology defenders of (...) the DDE and of related principles use, however. I will discuss how they actually proceed, focusing on their preferred four pairs of examples. While these examples might have rhetorical force, they are nevertheless philosophically and methodologically useless. As a corrective, I shall offer examples that do keep all else equal. These examples undermine the DDE and related principles. I then argue that while the Loop case and the “closeness” problem in the context of Jonathan Bennett’s Sophisticated Bomber example might once have been an embarrassment of sorts for defenders of the DDE, meanwhile their discussion serves as a convenient distraction from the many clear examples disproving the DDE and related principles. I conclude that the methodological mistakes found in defenses of the DDE – the biased framing, the rigged examples, the empirically unwarranted claims about how widely shared certain intuitions are, and the avoidance of the strongest counter-examples – can only be explained by systematic bias. There is simply no sufficient intuitive support for the DDE or related principles. Thus, instead of looking for their “rationales,” they should be abandoned. (shrink)

There are different formulations of the doctrine of double effect (DDE), and sometimes philosophers propose “revisions” or alternatives, like the means principle, for instance. To demonstrate that such principles are needed in the first place, one would have to compare cases in which all else is equal and show that the difference in intuitions, if any, can only be explained by the one remaining difference and thus by the principle in question. This is not the methodology defenders (...) of the DDE and of related principles use, however. I will discuss how they actually proceed, focusing on their preferred four pairs of examples. While these examples might have rhetorical force, they are nevertheless philosophically and methodologically useless (since they do not keep all else equal). As a corrective, I shall offer examples that do keep all else equal. These examples undermine the DDE and related principles. I then argue that while the Loop case and the “closeness” problem in the context of Jonathan Bennett’s Sophisticated Bomber example might once have been an embarrassment of sorts for defenders of the DDE, meanwhile their discussion serves as a convenient distraction from the many clear examples disproving the DDE and related principles. I conclude that there is simply no sufficient intuitive support for the DDE or related principles. Instead of looking for their “rationales,” they should be abandoned. (shrink)

Based on the results of empirical studies of folk moral judgment, several researchers have claimed that something like the famous Doctrine of Double Effect may be a fundamental, albeit unconscious, component of human moral psychology. Proponents of this psychological DDE hypothesis have, however, said surprisingly little about how the distinction at the heart of standard formulations of the principle—the distinction between intended and merely foreseen consequences—might be cognised when we make moral judgments about people’s actions. I first (...) highlight the problem of precisely formulating the distinction between intended and foreseen consequences and its implications for interpreting the empirical data on folk moral judgment. I then distinguish between three different approaches to this problem that have been taken by proponents of the DDE in normative ethics: so-called “closeness” accounts, accounts that employ what has come to be known as a “strict” notion of intention, and Warren Quinn’s recasting of the DDE in terms of the distinction between “direct” and “indirect agency”. I show that when taken as claims about moral psychology, these different accounts entail quite different empirical predictions about what people’s moral judgments should be in particular cases. Based on the current empirical data, I argue that a version of Quinn’s formulation of the DDE is the most empirically plausible, and that adopting such a formulation helps to diffuse much of the recent empirical criticism of the DDE hypothesis. (shrink)

In a recent edition of the journal Philosophy, Sophie Botros asserts that modern ethical theorists have badly misunderstood the role of the Doctrine of Double Effect, turning it into a device by which to prohibit actions which are deemed impermissible; whereas the true function of the Doctrine is rather one of justifying actions. In my reply, I argue that Dr Botros has misunderstood the Doctrine: that its ‘prohibitive’ and its ‘justificatory’ roles are merely two sides (...) of the same coin, since its function is to decide for a given action whether it is permissible or impermissible. Furthermore, Dr Botros has misconstrued the essential contribution of the DDE is not the balancing of good results against bad ones, but the quite different position that the crucial moral distinction is between intended and merely foreseen results. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that the Doctrine of Double Effect is identical with, or presupposes, the Intention Principle according to which an act can be impermissible if done with a wrongful intention. A main line of objections to the DDE, then, stems from the worry that the Intention Principle implausibly interiorizes the wrongness of an action. I will argue, first, that the DDE does not presuppose the Intention Principle, and, second, that intuitions brought against the Intention Principle (...) do not warrant us to reject the DDE. Therefore, a main line of objections to the DDE is misguided. (shrink)

The DDE yields counterintuitive verdicts about certain cases: it may deem it permissible to kill a certain number of people when they are not used as means and their death is not intended, but deny that killing fewer of these people is permissible if that requires intending their death, or using them as means. To accommodate the judgement that we may kill the lesser number in such cases, supporters of the DDE may appeal to Frances Kamm's Principle of Secondary Permissibility. (...) The principle says, roughly, that if it is permissible to kill n people when not intending their death, or using them as means, then it is permissible to kill n − m people in a way that does involve intending their deaths, or using them as means, as ‘secondarily permissible’. In this article I argue that appealing to the PSP to solve the puzzling cases of the DDE is generally misleading and that it fails in particular cases. The crux of my argument is that the PSP allows killings that go against the grain of the DDE. (shrink)

Whether one should accept a principle like DDE cannot be settled independent of one's more general moral theory. In this, I take it, I agree with Professor Boyle, though I do not think he has shown that DDE has a role only in his particular form of absolutism. Still, since his theory does require DDE, an important question is what the alternatives are – whether we must choose between this absolutism and either utilitarianism or intuitionism. A form of contractualism, the (...) requirements of which derive to a large extent from institutionally or conventionally established rights, is sketched here as an attractive alternative. It does not lead, so far as I can see, to DDE. Keywords: authority, contractualism, rights CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect [DDE] states roughly that it is harder to justify causing or allowing harm as a means to an end than it is to justify conduct that results in harm as a side effect. This chapter argues that a theory of deontological constraints on harming needs something like the DDE in order to avoid the charge that it reflects a narcissistic obsession with the cleanliness of our own hands. Unfortunately, the DDE is (...) often interpreted as maintaining that we must avoid acting with certain intentions, which, this chapter contends, embodies an equally narcissistic obsession with the purity of our own hearts. The chapter argues that the DDE is better interpreted as a denial of the Machiavellian idea that beneficial ends justify harmful means. On this view, the objective fact that our conduct will secure benefits for some individuals at the expense of other individuals weakens the extent to which those benefits count as reasons to engage in that conduct. The chapter argues that this version of the DDE provides a plausible, non-narcissistic foundation for deontological constraints. (shrink)

American criminal law is committed to some version of the doctrine of double effect. In this paper, I defend a new variant of the agent-centered rationale for a version of DDE that is of particular relevance to the criminal law. In particular, I argue for a non-absolute version of DDE that concerns the relative culpability of intending a bad or wrongful state of affairs as opposed to bringing it about merely knowingly. My aim is to identify a (...) particular feature of the former in virtue of which it is pro tanto more culpable than the latter. Providing an agent-centered argument of this kind for a culpability version of DDE, I argue, is an especially attractive route to take for those who are interested in vindicating the way the criminal law actually encodes DDE. (shrink)

This essay defends a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) – the doctrine that there is normally a stronger reason against an act that has a bad state of affairs as one of its intended effects than against an otherwise similar act that has that bad state of affairs as an unintended effect. First, a precise account of this version of the DDE is given. Secondly, some suggestions are made about why we should (...) believe the DDE, and about why it is true. Finally, a solution is developed to the so-called ‘closeness problem’ that any version of the DDE must face. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of double effect(DDE), there is a morally significantdifference between harm that is intended andharm that is merely foreseen and not intended.It is not difficult to explain why it is bad tointend harm as an end (you have a ``badattitude'' toward that harm) but it is hard toexplain why it is bad to intend harm as a meansto some good end. If you intend harm as a meansto some good end, you need not have (...) a ``badattitude'' toward it. I distinguish two ways inwhich you can treat something that is yourchosen means to your ends. You can pursue yourends directly, and treat X as a mere means thatyou pursue for the sake of your end. Or you canpursue your ends indirectly, and treat X as a``plan-relative end'' that you pursue for its ownsake. I argue that much of the time we pursueour ends indirectly, and treat our means asplan-relative ends. There are significantanalogies between intending harm as an end, andintending harm as a plan-relative end. So,under certain circumstances, it is morallyworse to intend harm as a means or an end thanto foresee bringing about the same amount of harm. (shrink)

This essay defends a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) – the doctrine that there is normally a stronger reason against an act that has a bad state of affairs as one of its intended effects than against an otherwise similar act that has that bad state of affairs as an unintended effect. First, a precise account of this version of the DDE is given. Secondly, some suggestions are made about why we should (...) believe the DDE, and about why it is true. Finally, a solution is developed to the so-called ‘closeness problem’ that any version of the DDE must face. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect (DDE) can have two different functions, permissive and restrictive. According to the first function, agents are exculpated from the negative consequences of their actions, consequences that would be deemed illicit were they intentionally chosen. According to the second, agents are reminded that they are responsible, albeit in a distinctive manner, for the foreseeable damages that flow from their chosen actions. Aquinas has standardly been credited with a permissive version of DDE. I argue (...) by contrast (drawing on the treatment of this issue in my Thomas Aquinas on War and Peace, Cambridge University Press, 2017) that the permissive version results from a misreading of Sum. theol. II-II, q. 64, a. 7. Other texts in the same work indicate that he embraced a restrictive version of DDE. (shrink)

In this new book Moral Dimensions, T. M. Scanlon (2008) explores the ethical significance of the intentions and motives with which people act. According to Scanlon, these intentions and motives do not have any direct bearing on the permissibility of the act. Thus, Scanlon claims that the traditional Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) is mistaken. However, the way in which someone is motivated to act has a direct bearing on what Scanlon calls the act's "meaning". One particularly (...) important kind of "meaning" that an act can have consists in the ways in which it is appropriate for various people to blame the agent for the act. So the book ends with an extended analysis of blame and blameworthiness. (shrink)

In his book Moral Dimensions. Permissibility, Meaning, Blame , T.M. Scanlon proposes a new account of permissibility, and argues, against the doctrine of double effect (DDE), that intentions do not matter for permissibility. I argue that Scanlon's account of permissibility as based on what the agent should have known at the time of action does not sufficiently take into account Scanlon's own emphasis on permissibility as a question for the deliberating agent. A proper account of permissibility, based (...) on the agent's actual beliefs, will allow us to revise the principle Scanlon proposes for regulating the use of violence in war, and to show that, while the DDE as such might be invalid, its focus on intentions does point toward an important element which Scanlon's proposal lacks, viz. the requirement that the agent believes that her actions will have certain consequences and can be justified for that reason. (shrink)

I argue that the moral distinction in double effect cases rests on a difference not in intention as traditionally stated in the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE), but in desire. The traditional DDE has difficulty ensuring that an agent intends the bad effect just in those cases where what he does is morally objectionable. I show firstly that the mental state of a rational agent who is certain that a side-effect will occur satisfies (...) Bratman's criteria for intending that effect. I then clarify the nature of the moral distinction in double effect cases and how it can be used to evaluate the moral blameworthiness of agents rather than the moral status of acts. The agent's blameworthiness is reduced not by his lack of intention but by his desire not to bring about the side-effect, and the 'counterfactual test' can be used to determine whether he desires the effect in acting. In my version, the DDE has its rationale in virtue ethics; it is not liable to abuse as the traditional version is; and it makes more plausible distinctions when applied to standard examples. (shrink)

Many philosophers display relaxed scepticism about the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing and the Doctrine of Double Effect, suspecting, without great alarm, that one or both of these Doctrines is indefensible. This relaxed scepticism is misplaced. Anyone who aims to endorse a theory of right action with Nonconsequentialist implications should accept both the DDA and the DDE. First, even to state a Nonconsequentialist theory requires drawing a distinction between respecting and promoting values. This cannot be done (...) without accepting some deontological distinction. Second, if someone is going to accept any deontological distinction she should accept either the DDE or the DDA or some replacement. Finally, anyone who accepts either the DDE or the DDA should accept both doctrines or a replacement of each. Unless both Doctrines can be defended or given a defensible replacement, any Nonconsequentialist is in trouble. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect can have two different functions, permissive and restrictive. According to the first function, agents are exculpated from the negative consequences of their actions, consequences that would be deemed illicit were they intentionally chosen. According to the second, agents are reminded that they are responsible, albeit in a distinctive manner, for the foreseeable damages that flow from their chosen actions. Aquinas has standardly been credited with a permissive version of DDE. I argue by (...) contrast that the permissive version results from a misreading of Sum. theol. II-II, q. 64, a. 7. Other texts in the same work indicate that he embraced a restrictive version of DDE. (shrink)

Arguing against the doctrine of double effect, Bennett claims that the terror bomber only intends to make his victims appear dead. An obvious reply is that he intends to make them appear dead by killing them. I argue that the alleged refutations of this reply rest on a mistaken test question to determine what an agent intends, as Bennett's own test question confirms, and that Bennett is misled by confusing metaphorical death and literal death. Moreover, Bennett's argument (...) is half-hearted anyway, and going the whole way would not only undermine the DDE but also Quinn's revision of it. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) provides that, all else equal, intentional deaths are harder to justify than merely foreseen deaths. The principle is meant to ground the distinction within humanitarian law between terror bombing and strategic bombing. However, according to the “closeness problem,” terror bombers are not necessarily intentional killers. Terror bombing strictly requires only that the civilians appear dead, goes the argument, such that—for a “sophisticated” terror bomber—the civilians’ deaths could be unintended side-effects of making (...) them appear dead. But if intentions could be calibrated so finely and strategically, the argument continues, then the DDE would very doubtfully be true. This essay replies to the closeness problem in three steps. First, agents often intend _causal processes_, with specific causal “ingredients,” as the proximate means of bringing about their specifically intended means or ends. Second, when an agent foresees a byproduct as resulting directly from their intended causal process, it is morally equivalent to a specifically intended outcome. The process’s causal relationship to the byproduct is constitutive of the process from the agent’s perspective. Third, a “sophisticated” terror bomber’s intended causal process involves blowing up the civilians, while a strategic bomber’s involves blowing up, say, a munitions factory. Thus, because the “sophisticated” terror bomber foresees their intended causal process as resulting directly in the civilians’ deaths, while the strategic bomber foresees their deaths as side-effects of their intended causal process occurring within an environment that happens to contain civilians, the DDE can distinguish between the bombers. (shrink)

Aquinas talks about a topic with which fans of Sons of Anarchy are all too familiar: homicide and murder. For Aquinas, murder is the private, intentional homicide of an innocent human being and always wrong. This is called the Murder Principle. Murder is the killing of an innocent. This seems to leave the Sons—a private organization rather than an arm of the state—without the legitimate authority to take a life. Watching Sons of Anarchy makes us increasingly suspicious of the moral (...) authority of the state and its agents, who hardly seem like the competent “doctors” of Aquinas's amputation analogy. Contemporary philosophers have articulated the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE), the gist of which states that it is sometimes morally permissible to bring about as a foreseen but unintended side‐effect what one would not be permitted to bring about intentionally. Aquinas's Murder Principle condemns much of what the Sons do. (shrink)

One of the most commonly referenced ethical principles when it comes to the management of dying patients is the doctrine of double effect (DDE). The DDE affirms that it is acceptable to cause side effects (e.g. respiratory depression) as a consequence of symptom‐focused treatment. Much discussion of the ethics of end of life care focuses on the question of whether actions (or omissions) would hasten (or cause) death, and whether that is permissible. However, there is a separate (...) question about the permissibility of hastening or causing unconsciousness in dying patients. Some authors have argued that the DDE would not permit end of life care that directly aims to render the patient unconscious. The claim is that consciousness is an objective human good and therefore doctors should not intentionally (and permanently) suppress it. Three types of end of life care (EOLC) practices will be explored in this article. The first is symptom‐based management (e.g. analgesia); the second is proportional terminal sedation as a means of relieving suffering (also referred to as palliative sedation or continuous deep sedation); and finally, deliberate and rapid sedation to unconsciousness until death (a practice we call terminal anaesthesia in this paper). After examining the common arguments for the various types of symptom‐based management and sedation, we apply the DDE to the latter two types of EOLC practices. We argue that aiming at unconsciousness, contrary to some claims, can be morally good or at least morally neutral in some dying patients. (shrink)

Abortion bans have been characterized as cruel especially in not allowing exceptions for rape or incest. The article first examines one approach to morally justifying bans based on the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) which distinguishes morally between killing or letting die intending death versus doing so only foreseeing death. It then presents some criticisms of the implications of the DDE but also argues that what the doctrine permits helps provide a ground for the permissibility of (...) abortions even if the fetus is a person. Whether there are limits on applying this argument is also considered. In conclusion, the article considers whether and why not permitting exceptions to bans for rape and incest is cruel and whether cruelty is a ground for opposition to bans. (shrink)

This paper examines whether physician-assisted suicide is morally permissible, and whether it should be legalised in the sense that those seeking or performing such procedure will be immune from prosecution. The issues of moral and legal permissibility1 are closely connected. One way to argue for the permissibility of PAS is grounded in the argument that a patient has the right to refuse life-saving equipment, or to have it withdrawn,2 and then to further argue that there is no relevant distinction between (...) refusal/withdrawal and PAS, if the patient consents. This is essentially the argument raised in “The Philosophers’ Brief ”, filed by six distinguished philosophers. However, this argument has been soundly criticised. Frances Kamm points out that the general claim on which Dworkin et al. rely—that there is no moral difference per se between killing and letting die—is false. This is because a patient has the right to refuse treatment even when this is against his interest because the alternative would be forced treatment, but it is not true to say that a patient has the right to PAS even when it is against his interest. Also at issue is the Doctrine of Double Effect, according to which there is a moral distinction between an action that is intended to cause death and one that is merely foreseen to cause death. [End Page 224] In section I of this paper, I shall argue against DDE, which purports to disallow PAS but not refusal/withdrawal. I shall argue that since it is permissible for a physician to prescribe morphine to a patient suffering excruciating pain, it is also permissible for her to prescribe such a drug to a patient suffering pain, with the intention that he be killed and hence relieved of the suffering. The grounds on which I rely is the thesis that intention is irrelevant to permissibility, as proposed by Judith Thomson and T.M. Scanlon. In section II, I shall discuss David Velleman’s argument that termination of life is morally impermissible. I proceed to examine in section III the theoretical version of the Slippery Slope Argument. In section IV, I shall consider the practical version of the Slippery Slope Argument. In section V, I shall discuss other consequentialist objections to the legalisation of PAS. In the final section, I shall consider the view that even if PAS is morally permissible, it does not follow that it should be legalised. The argument I consider is the consequentialist one that legalising PAS may have a very different significance—when we consider the total consequences—than if there is only a single act of PAS, considered in isolation. While I agree that consequences are generally very important, I shall argue that we should approach the issue from a contractualist rather than a utilitarian perspective.3. (shrink)

Doug Husak frames a worry that makes sense in the abstract, but in reality, there is not much to worry about. The thesis that intentions are irrelevant to permissibility (IIP) is a straw man. There are reasons to think that the moral significance of intentions is not properly registered in criminal law. But the moral basis for criticism is not nearly as extreme as the IIP, and the fixes are not that hard to make. Lastly, if they are not made, (...) some people may not get the punishments they deserve, and there will be some extra inequities in the criminal law as a result. But these inequities are not so great that change must be made now. The moral categories that are used may be too crude, but they are also familiar and easy to work with, and that counts for something. (shrink)