Doctrine Of Double Effect Flashcards
What is the doctrine of double effect?
-The doctrine of double effect is a crucial aspect of Aquinas’s natural moral law that allows for moral decision-making in complex situations where an action may have both good and bad outcomes. -Aquinas posits that an act can be morally permissible if it meets certain criteria: the act itself must be good or neutral and the intention behind the act must be good.
What’s an example of the doctrine of double effect?
-In the case of a pregnant woman whose life is endangered by a pregnancy complication, the decision to perform a procedure that may indirectly result in the loss of the fetus can be justified if the intention is to “preserve” the mother’s life (a primary precept) despite the order to “reproduce” that stems in the primary precept .
-Aquinas’s emphasis on intention aligns with the deontological nature of natural moral law, where the morality of an action is judged based on adherence to rules rather than consequences alone.
What are some criticisms of the doctrine of double effect?
-One major criticism of the doctrine of double effect (DDE) is its ambiguity in distinguishing between what constitutes an “intended” versus “unintended” effect. Critics argue that it is difficult to draw a clear line between what is truly intended and what is merely foreseen leading to inconsistent moral judgements in real world issues
-For instance, if an action has a good primary effect and a bad secondary effect, it can be challenging to prove that the negative outcome was genuinely unintended, especially when many actions have foreseeable consequences that could still influence the agent’s motivation.
How does the ethical issue of “collateral damage” during warfare highlight flaws in the DDE?
-For example, during military operations, it is not uncommon for forces to target military objectives that are close to civilian areas, which may result in civilian casualties.
-According to DDE, the civilian deaths could be considered unintended as long as they are not directly targeted, even if they were foreseeable consequences of the operation. However, the distinction between intended and unintended is difficult to maintain in practice.
-As philosopher Joseph Fletcher, a proponent of situation ethics, famously said, “The end justifies the means,” suggesting that an action’s morality should be evaluated based on the situation rather than rigid rules.
