The Doctrine of Double Effect

I will argue that we should reject the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). I will explain what DDE is. Then, I will argue that it is not morally wrong to intend a bad effect in the New York case. After demonstrating this, I will go over examples that demonstrate how DDE distinguishes morally permissible from morally impermissible acts. Following that, I will explain why defenders of DDE are inclined to believe it. I will specifically show a solution for DDE from Bennet and a solution that Fitzpatrick proposed, then I will demonstrate how both solutions fail to distinguish between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm. This is called the closeness problem (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 376). Furthermore, I will explain how the conclusion follows from the premises. I will now present my argument.

1. In the New York case it is not morally wrong to intend a bad effect.

2. We cannot distinguish between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm.

3. Therefore, (1) and (2). [1, 2 Conj]

4. If (1) and (2), then it is not always morally wrong to intend a bad effect.

5. If it is not always morally wrong to intend a bad effect, then we should reject DDE.

6. Therefore, we should reject DDE. [3,4,5 Multiple Modus Ponens]

DDE is attributed to Thomas Aquinas. Joseph Mangan presents the following formulation of DDE:

1. that the action in itself from its very object be good or at least indifferent;

2. that the good effect and not the evil effect be intended;

3. that the good effect be not produced by means of the evil effect;

4. that there be a proportionately grave reason for permitting the evil effect (Mangan, 1949, pp. 41–61).

This formulation is a criterion of conditions that need to be met to indicate whether a certain act is morally permissible or not. A good effect refers to the result being morally good overall for all the agents involved. For example, suppose a truck is heading toward person A and you push person A away from the street. Person A may have some scratches due to you pushing them; however, in this act overall, you intended the good effect of saving person A’s life. A bad effect refers to the result being morally bad overall. For instance, if I am at the store and I hear there is one last pair of my favorite shoes, and I choose to push someone to get them, then I am intending the bad effect by harming someone by intentionally pushing her out of the way to get to the shoes. The first condition means that the act itself must be morally good or indifferent. The second condition means that one must intend something good out of the action. If something bad is necessary for this action, the bad thing itself cannot be intended. The third condition means that the good effect must come from the action itself. The good effect cannot come from the bad effect. The final condition means that the good that comes from this act must outweigh the bad.

In defense of premise one, in the New York case, it is not morally wrong to intend a bad effect. Consider the following case:

New York and the Bomber

Suppose someone places bombs in secret locations around New York City. If these bombs were to explode, millions of innocent people would be killed. Nya knows that if she tortures the criminal, she will have a high chance of getting the truth out of him; that is, she will have a high chance of finding out the location of the bombs and stopping them from going off. She also knows that medical professionals can erase the bomber’s memory of the torture using therapy and medication. Knowing this, she chooses to torture the criminal.

In this example, Nya intends to harm the person directly to save many other lives. This demonstrates that it is not clear whether it is always morally impermissible to intend harm. The second line of Mangan’s criterion, “that the good effect and not the evil effect be intended,” must be met for something to be morally permissible on a DDE evaluation. Intending a bad effect violates the natural order leading to moral wrongness. In addition to this, Nya intends the bad effect of torturing the criminal to find out where the bombs are to save millions of lives. It appears to be morally problematic to say that Nya’s act is morally impermissible because in “lesser of evils” cases the agent will have to make a decision intending a bad effect. It does not follow that intending a bad effect is always morally impermissible. Since it is not morally wrong to intend a bad effect in the New York case, then premise one is true.

Now, I will explain why defenders of DDE are inclined to believe it. I will specifically show a solution for DDE from Bennet and a solution that Fitzpatrick proposed, then I will demonstrate how both solutions fail to distinguish between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm. This is called the closeness problem.

In defense of premise two, we cannot distinguish between intending and merely foreseeing harm. I will focus on the second condition of DDE formulation which says the good effect and not the evil effect be intended. The good that comes from an act must be significant enough to justify the bad effect that comes from this action to be considered morally permissible under DDE. I will demonstrate two pairs of cases that show how DDE works with these conditions.

These pairs of cases rely on the “aiming-at-evil” rationale (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 378). The “aiming-at-evil” rationale says that an act is morally permissible only when the agent does not ultimately aim at a bad effect. An agent that aims at a bad effect may violate the natural order, which brings about moral wrongness. The first pair of cases I will be presenting is the Strategic Bomber and Terror Bomber. The second pair of cases are Hysterectomy and Craniotomy.

Strategic Bomber
A bomber (fighting a just war) drops a bomb on an enemy munitions factory, intending to destroy the factory and thereby damage the enemy’s fighting ability, foreseeing that the fallout from the resulting explosion will cause the death of a number of innocent civilians living near the factory, but not intending these deaths (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 378).

Terror Bomber
A bomber (fighting a just war) drops a bomb on an enemy munitions factory, intending the resulting explosion-fallout-caused deaths of a number of innocent civilians living near the factory, as a means of terrorizing the rest of the enemy population into giving up the war effort (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 378).

Hysterectomy
“A Doctor removes a pregnant woman’s cancerous uterus in order to save her life” (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 380).

Craniotomy
“A Doctor removes a fetus from a pregnant woman’s body in order to save her life by crushing its skull and sucking the remains through the mother’s birth canal” (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 380).

The action of the Strategic Bomber is morally permissible according to DDE because he does not intend the harm that comes from it, and the case of Hysterectomy is morally permissible because the Doctor foresees the death of the fetus but does not intend the death. The action of the Terror Bomber is morally impermissible according to DDE because he intends the deaths of innocent people as a way to achieve his goal, and Craniotomy is morally impermissible on a DDE evaluative because the Doctor intends the harm that comes from crushing the baby’s head in order to save the mother. However, there is another version of the Bomber cases that threaten DDE.

Sophisticated Terror Bomber (STB)
A bomber (fighting a just war) drops a bomb on an enemy munitions factory, intending "only that [the enemy civilians’] bodies should be in a state that would cause a general belief that they were dead, this lasting long enough to shorten the war: nothing in that scheme requires that the dismaying condition of the bodies be permanent; so nothing in it requires that the [enemy civilians] become downright dead rather than merely seemingly dead for a year or two (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 380).

This example demonstrates the closeness problem with DDE and that “intending harm” is ambiguous. It appears in this case the STB may have intended the people to appear dead, which happens to be harmful. This does not mean he intends to harm. This shows that STB and Strategic Bomber are both equally justified according to DDE because both bombers did not intend harm. Instead, they merely foresaw the harm. However, the action of the STB appears to be morally problematic. I will now present a series of proposals made in an attempt to solve the closeness problem and criticisms from Nelkin and Rickless.

Bennet proposes Causal Necessitation. Causal Necessitation attempts to make the claim that when there are two distinct events in which the “first causally necessitates the second” and the second is a bad effect, then the act as a whole is morally impermissible (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 383). For instance, in Craniotomy the crushing of the baby’s skull inevitably causes the death of the baby. In other words, the crushing of the baby’s head causally necessitates the death of the baby. For the STB, the first event (the act of bombing the enemy munitions) makes the second event (the death and harm of the people) inevitable for it is not possible to bomb the enemy munitions without killing or harming the people. However, if Causal Necessitation is true, then both Hysterectomy and the Strategic Bomber are instances of morally impermissible acts as well. It could be argued that it is the first event (removing the mother’s uterus) that makes the second event (the baby’s death) inevitable. The first event for the Strategic Bomber (dropping a bomb on enemy munitions) makes the second event (the death of innocent civilians) inevitable. Therefore, the Causal Necessitation solution fails to solve the closeness problem because it fails to point out the relevant differences between these pairs of cases.

Fitzpatrick proposed a solution called “natural constitution” (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 389). According to this solution the first situation naturally constitutes the second situation. The agent also has to know the first situation naturally constitutes the following situation. For the Strategic Bomber, this implies that bombing the enemy munitions camp naturally constitutes the destruction of the enemy munitions camp, not the death or harm of innocent civilians. This means that under this solution, the Strategic Bomber’s act is morally permissible. On the other hand, for the STB this would mean: “people’s being impacted with ordinary lethal bombs in such a way as to make them appear dead [constitutes] their being killed” (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 390). This implies that the act of the STB is morally impermissible because he intends a bad effect according to the natural constitution. Crushing the baby’s head naturally constitutes death or harm to the baby. The act of crushing the baby’s head naturally constitutes the death or harm of the baby, so this implies the Doctor intended the death and harm of the baby. This is different from the Hysterectomy case. The Doctor removing the uterus from the mother’s body naturally constitutes the removal of the baby, not the death. This implies the Doctor intended the removal of the baby, not death or harm. Therefore, the Doctor’s act in Craniotomy is morally impermissible and the Doctor’s act in Hysterectomy is morally permissible on a DDE evaluation. This theory has demonstrated there is a difference between each of the pairs of cases; however, Nelkin and Rickless object to the “natural constitution” because it is a theory, and theories require “a definition to back the classification of new instances” (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 391). In addition to this, the theory holds that the agent must know that one act naturally constitutes another act. This leaves space for ambiguity in the theory because in both the Craniotomy and the STB case it can be argued that they did not know one act would naturally constitute another. Therefore, this theory is ambiguous and not well explained, so it fails to solve the closeness problem.

All of this demonstrates it is not the case that we can distinguish between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm. Different proposals and theories have been presented to solve the closeness problem; however, these theories and proposals have shown to be problematic. According to Nelkin and Rickless, this is because they all rest on the “aiming-at-evil” rationale. They suggest a few reasons why we should not accept this rationale (Nelkin & Rickless, 2015, p. 403). If one says an intended action is evil because it is wrong, then the explanation for the act being wrong lies in circular reasoning. If one says an intended action is evil because it is something bad, it does not seem to solve the problem because there are instances in which aiming at bad can be morally permissible. The main problem is that the rationale uses evil to explain itself. It claims intending harm is wrong but does not explain why it is wrong. If we reject this rationale, then we can reject condition two of DDE.

In defense of premise four, if (1) and (2), then it is not always morally wrong to intend a bad effect. Remember premise 1 claims that it was not morally wrong to intend harm in the New York case. Premise two claims that we cannot distinguish between intending and merely foreseeing harm. A conditional statement is true if the consequent is necessary for the antecedent. This means that if the conditional statement is true, then if the consequent is false, then the antecedent must be false. If the consequence of P1 is false, then it is not the case that it is not always morally wrong to intend a bad effect. However, if it is not the case that it is not always morally wrong to intend a bad effect, then it is not the case that (1) and (2). So, if the consequence of P1 is false, then the antecedent must be false. This shows that P1 is true.^[1]

In defense of premise five, if it is not always morally wrong to intend a bad effect, then we should reject DDE. In both (1) and (2) DDE has been demonstrated to be implausible since it does not permit causing any harm even if there are morally justifiable reasons to do so. In the New York case, if Nya does not torture the bomber, millions of people will die. Withholding from committing an act is still making a choice. A more realistic scenario was one referenced at the beginning. One may choose to push someone from oncoming traffic and harm them a bit but save them in the process. It seems like the person who pushed someone to save their life needs to cause a bad effect to get to the good effect of saving the other person’s life. This is unacceptable according to DDE. In addition to this, DDE has failed to successfully distinguish between intending and merely foreseeing harm. Consider the New York case again. Nya could have merely intended to get the truth out of a terrorist, but not actually intended harm. She foresaw harm would come to him. This demonstrates that DDE does not offer much help in navigating similar choice scenarios. It seems like moral rightness lingers heavily on the intentions of a person. Condition two of DDE is false; if one part of DDE is false, then all of DDE should be rejected.

Conclusively, DDE should be rejected. The New York case demonstrates that we may be morally obligated to intend harm in certain circumstances for morally justifiable reasons, but DDE does not permit this. The closeness problem cannot be fixed because it rests on the “aiming-at-evil” rationale, which is not well explained. It also seems like the DDE gives a lot of weight to the agent’s intentions when determining if an act is morally permissible or impermissible. Moreover, it is not true that intending a bad effect is always morally impermissible.