PY 4826, Life and Death
Topic 4: The Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE)
This doctrine is based on the claim that there is an intrinsic moral distinction between intended and foreseen harms.
The DEE is often fully formulated as follows:
It is morally indefensible to intend to harm an innocent person, but it is morally defensible to perform actions with good intended consequences, where harm is a foreseen but unintended consequence. (eg. in the waging of a just war civilian casualties might be permitted, but it is always forbidden to target civilians.)
First objection:
It seems it could support almost any action, if one specifies the intention narrowly enough.
Anscombe: one intends the means taken toward one’s intended ends. If someone’s death is a means to the agent’s end, that person’s death part of the agent’s plan to achieve his goal.
I: Is there a suitably objective, defensible conceptual distinction between intended and merely foreseen effects?
II. Is there a defensible moral distinction?
In my deliberation, I consider the full situations that will result if I perform the various actions open to me.
Therefore, when I choose one of those actions, I cannot deny that I choose the full situation that it involves.
Kagan on the justification of the DDE:
Kagan attacks the two standard justifications of the DDE.
1. it is wrong to aim at evil
2. it is wrong to use others as means.
Against 1:
What if my only way of sparing one person a lot of pain in future is by inflicting a lesser amount of pain on him now? Kagan argues that this example shows that it need not be wrong to aim at evil.
Against 2:
a) You can be effectively doing this when you merely foresee that harm to someone else will further your ends.
b) Intending harm to someone does not involve a greater disrespect for him than merely countenancing it as a side-effect, if there is an adequate justification for intending to harm him.
Quinn’s version of the DDE:
He formulates the DDE as the claim that we need a stronger case to justify harmful direct agency than to justify equally harmful indirect agency, where:
- in harmful direct agency, “harm comes to some victims, at least in part, from the agent’s deliberately involving them in something in order to further his purpose precisely by way of their being so involved”; whereas
- in harmful indirect agency, “either nothing is in that way intended for the victims or what is so intended does not contribute to their harm.” (184-5)
Eg. The terror bomber cannot deny that harm comes to the victims of the bombing through the bomber’s pursuing his purpose of terrorising the population by bombing them.
The problem of proportionality:
This is avoided, as long as we avoid the claim that unintended harm is morally permissible.
Quinn is not saying that all harmful direct agency is wrong, and all harmful indirect agency is permissible.
He is simply saying that the distinction between harmful direct agency and harmful indirect agency is morally significant.
Quinn’s version deals with Kagan’s complaint that the DDE is too weak, since his version does not say that unintended harm is defensible.
Kagan’s converse complaint is that the DDE is too strong, since it says that intended harm is indefensible.
Kagan mentions a case of self-defence against aggressors who use shields.
Quinn’s reply: self-defence can be an adequate justification for harming someone, but a stronger justification is needed for employing harmful direct agency than harmful indirect agency.
In the case of a shield through whose body my bullet must pass, this is not harmful direct agency. I’m not furthering my purpose by way of their being involved.
Quinn’s justification of the distinction:
His argument is that harmful direct agency involves a stronger form of disrespect for its victims than harmful indirect agency.
It violates the Kantian ideal that each person is to be treated as free and equal – as having a right not to be sacrificed for purposes he does not share. Eg. the strategic bomber is viewing the civilians as strategically, is if they were for his purposes.
Quinn can deny Kagan’s claim that only unjustified harm involves disrespect. The disrespect Quinn is concerned with is a matter of whether the agent recognises another person’s right not to be sacrificed for purposes he does not share; not whether the agent has good reasons for wanting to sacrifice him for these purposes.