Thanks for being patient with me. The new work position has been keeping me pretty busy, but very rewarding. As a result though I have not been able to make a lot of posts here. That may happen for a bit more time but I will try to do more in the near future to keep up with this blog.
I would like to use this post to explain The Principle of Double Effect. This has been coming up on and off recently in discussions and articles, so I thought it is important to discuss.
So what exactly is the Principle of Double Effect? It is essentially a principle that originated
within Catholic thinking (it should be noted, however, that it is more than
possible for people who do not adhere to the Catholic religion to believe in
and argue for the Principle of Double Effect).
Aspects of the Principle are seen as far back in time as in the writings
of St. Thomas Aquinas. Although he did
not specifically call it the “Principle of Double Effect,” he still implemented
much of the essence of the Principle in his teachings (see his Summa Theologica II-II, Question 64, Article 7).
Philosophical inquiries have always delved into questions
concerning what is morally right and what is morally wrong. As a result of such continuous inquiries
philosophers have begun to ask, “What about situations that have both good
effects and bad effects?” In other
words, how do we determine when an action that produces both good effects and
bad effects is moral or immoral? For
example, what do we say about a situation where someone needs to kill someone
to protect their own life (the good effect being the protection of one’s own
life and the bad effect being the killing of a person)?
Enter the Principle of Double Effect.
Basically, the Principle of Double Effect is an attempt to describe how situations that have both good and bad effects can be deemed to be either moral or immoral. Specifically, this Principle says that for a situation involving an action that has both good and bad effects to be deemed morally acceptable it must meet four criteria (as stated by the New Catholic Encyclopedia and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [which quotes from the New Catholic Encyclopedia]). Those four criteria are:
- the
action must be morally good or, at the very least, morally neutral
- the
person doing the act cannot positively intend to achieve the bad effect,
but merely permit it. If the person
could attain the good effect of the action without the bad effect then the
person should do so.
- the
good effect must be produced directly (causally, not necessarily in
relation to time) from the act itself, not from the bad effect.
- the
good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing
of the bad effect.
Let’s break this down to see if we can make some more sense
of it.
- The
action must be morally good or, at the very least, morally neutral
This pretty much speaks for itself. If the action itself is truly wrong then it
should not be done regardless of its effects.
If I were to rob a bank, for instance, then it does not matter what
effects, good or bad, come about as a result of that action because the very
action itself is wrong.
- The
person doing the act cannot positively intend to achieve the bad effect,
but merely permit it. If the person
could attain the good effect of the action without the bad effect then the
person should do so
This is probably the most controversial part of the
Principle, but upon closer inspection it is one that makes a lot of sense. It’s saying that someone cannot do an action
if they are intending the bad effect; they must only intend the good
effect.
Let us go back to the first example I gave above, about the
person who needs to kill an unjust aggressor in order to protect their own
life. The Principle of Double Effect
says that for the defender to, on a moral level, protect their own life from
the unjust aggressor they cannot intend the death of the aggressor; they must
only intend to protect their own life.
To intend the death of the other is the same as using the bad means
(kill the aggressor) to justify a good ends (protecting your own life), which
is always morally wrong. However, if the
defender only intends to protect their life and they just so happen to bring
about the death of the aggressor (even though they don’t want to) then what
they did is morally acceptable. In such
a situation the death of the aggressor was not wanted and only came about as an
effect of the good intention that the defender had.
Now one might argue against this by saying, “Well what if
the person knows that the bad effect will happen? Doesn’t there knowledge of what is going to
happen mean that they intend for it to happen?”
My response to this, though, is no, not necessarily. Let’s go back to the self-defense
analogy. Let’s say that both the
defender and the aggressor have a gun.
Furthermore, let’s say that the defender knows that if the aggressor
raises his gun at him he will have to shoot him in the head in order to defend
his own life. Of course, the defender
knows that if he shoots the aggressor in the face then he will probably
die. It does not follow, however, that the
defender intends to kill the person.
Just because he knows that the aggressor will die if he shoots him in
the face does not change the fact that, assuming he’s adhering to the Principle
of Double Effect, he intends to kill him.
His only intention is to defend his own life, even if he knows that the
only way for him to do so ends with the death of the aggressor.
Let’s use a simpler example to drive this point home. Let’s say that I am a teacher and that I am
grading a test that a student took. The
student, however, ended up failing her test.
I know that I have to talk to her about this, but then I recognize two
effects that will come about from telling her.
A good effect is that I know her well enough to know that when I do tell
her that she failed she will make sure to study for the next test. A bad effect is that she will become very
upset with herself. So what should I do,
knowing that these two effects will come about?
I don’t think anyone would deny that I should tell her and that I should
intend the good effect without intending the bad effect. It also seems pretty obvious that I can know
what the bad effect is without intending
it (I am not telling her in order to make her upset, after all, even though I
know that this will happen). Hence, in
the same way one who defends themself, even if they foresee a bad effect of
their defense being the death of the aggressor, does not necessarily intend the
death of the aggressor.
- The
good effect must be produced directly (causally, not necessarily in relation
to time) from the act itself, not from the bad effect
In essence, this condition states that one cannot intend the
good effect if it comes about as a result of accomplishing the bad effect. For example, If I wish to provide my family
with food but have no money then I may think it a good idea to steal food. The third condition says that it would be
ridiculous for me to claim that I am intending the good effect and not
intending the bad effect because the way in which I am achieving the effect of
giving food to my family is by, first, achieving the effect of stealing. Hence, I am intending, as a means to an end,
to do the bad effect, even though the end is good in and of itself.
- The
good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing
of the bad effect
