Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil (Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics)
T. A. Cavanaugh
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: B000QCQTXE
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
T. A. Cavanaugh defends double-effect reasoning (DER), also known as the principle of double effect. DER plays a role in anti-consequentialist ethics (such as deontology), in hard cases in which one cannot realize a good without also causing a foreseen, but not intended, bad effect (for example, killing non-combatants when bombing a military target). This study is the first book-length account of the history and issues surrounding this controversial approach to hard cases. It will be indispensable in theoretical ethics, applied ethics (especially medical and military), and moral theology. It will also interest legal and public policy scholars.
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Not use greater force than is necessary to preserve his own life. According to Thomas, when the defender does not intend to take the life of the aggressor, but acts with excessive force, he would not act well, insofar as his use of force exceeds what is necessary for self-defence. Thus, Thomas excludes both the intentional taking of life and the use of excessive force. Knauer, however, holds that the act is an intentional taking of life when the agent uses excessive force. The contemporary.
That effect, the third criterion comparing the good and bad outcomes (present in all discernible versions of DER) would be otiose. It is not. DER holds agents fully responsible for what they cause with foresight but without intent. In any case, realizing that his own deontological account requires something akin to DER to address hard cases, he presents a casuistry in which he defines murder as, ‘killing another rational being who is materially innocent’ (Donagan 1985, 875). Donagan contrasts.
Intention has significance it would be in agent-assessment.56 What are the transitive verbs of which he speaks? He gives as examples, ‘ “hurt”, “help”, “betray”, “reward”, and “harm” ’ (ibid.). Thus, according to Bennett, to say “I hurt him” is to remain silent about what I knew or wanted. A plea 56 Ultimately, Bennett thinks that the distinction lacks ethical relevance in agent-assessment when applied to consequentially comparable cases (Bennett 1995, 221–4). The i/f distinction's ethical.
Nor intend it in my plan of action. Rather, I will it in an entirely derivative, superficial, and secondary fashion as inevitably causally associated with what I will primarily. Insofar as what an agent knowingly and willingly causes constitutes an action and insofar as willing admits of these three distinct relations, the goodness and badness of actions that cause consequentially similar states of affairs vary partly in accordance with the different volitional states that constitute different.
Nothing prevents one act from having two effects, of which only one is intended, the other being praeter intentionem. Now moral acts receive their character according to that which is intended, not, however, from that which is praeter intentionem, since this is accidental, as is evident from what has been said earlier [II-II q.43 a.3 c]. Thus, from the act of self-defence, two effects may follow: one, the conservation of one's own life; the other, the death of the aggressor. Since what is.