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The doctrine of double effect "can be summarised crudely as saying that it is always wrong intentionally to do a bad act for the sake of good consequences that will ensue, but that it may be permissible to do a good act in the knowledge that bad consequences will ensue". In the latter case, the bad consequences are said to be 'merely foreseen', rather than intended.

Justifying Conditions

1. the intended final end must be good.

2. the intended means to it must be morally acceptable.

3. the foreseen bad upshot must not itself be willed (that is, it must not be, in some sense, intended).

4. the good end must be proportionate to the bad upshot (that is, must be important enough to justify the bad upshot).

Examples

The doctrine of double effect is thought to reflect the difference between:

1. a doctor giving pain-killing drugs to a patient who would otherwise die in agony, where as a side effect his death is accelerated and a doctor giving a drug that will kill the patient as a way of preventing further pain,

2. a strategic bomber who bombs an enemy factory to destroy its productive capacity with the side effect that innocent civilians die (EG, 'collateral damage') and a terror bomber who bombs innocent civilians in order to demoralise the enemy, and

3. the removal of a pregnant mother's cancerous womb in order to save her life that has the side effect that the foetus dies and the crushing of the head of the foetus that the mother is trying to deliver in order to save the mother's life.

The doctrine of double effect is commonly held to permit the former act of each example and to prohibit the latter acts.

Problems

• the problem of redescription. The pronouncements of the doctrine may very much depend on what we say that we intend. (EG, the fat man in the cave.) ,

• it is not easy to distinguish between intended means and foreseen consequences.

Considerations

Further reading

Glover, J., Causing death and saving lives (Penguin Books, 1977)
Quinn, W.S., Actions, intentions and consequences: the doctrine of double effect, Philosophy and public affairs, 1989,
Quinn, W.S., Morality and Action, Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Mackie, J.L., Ethics (Penguin Books, 1977)
Foot, P., Virtues and Vices (Basil Blackwell, 1978),
Beachamp, T., & Childress, J., Principles of Biomedical Ethics, OUP, 1994.
Gillon, R., Philosophical Medical Ethics, John Wiley & Sons, 1986

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