Thumbnail Image
Publication

Reevaluating The Historical Evolution of Double Effect:

Rovie, Eric
Author(s)
Rovie, Eric
Author(s) (Additional)
Illustrator(s)
Producer(s)
Contributor(s)
Contributor(s) (Other)
Editor(s)
Advisor(s)
Contact(s)
Data Collector(s)
Keywords
business ethics
morality
GE Subjects
Methods of ethics
Philosophical ethics
Collections
Business Ethics
Show all metadata
Files
Thumbnail Image
RovieDoubleEffect.pdf
Adobe PDF, 161.22 KB
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/171746
Online Access
Abstract
The doctrine of double effect[2] is a principle of reasoning common to moral philosophy and pervasive in contemporary applied ethics that argues that, under certain conditions, an agent can perform an act that aims towards good ends while also knowing that the action will bring about some bad results.[3] Some understand it as a release from an absolute prohibition on acting in a certain way: in other words, the doctrine allows an otherwise prohibited consequence that follows as a side effect of some other act. It is utilized frequently in discussions of the morality of killing (most notably for use in wartime) but is almost as often misunderstood and misused. I will examine the genesis of the doctrine in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and offer a historical comparison to the evolution of the doctrine in the works of Elizabeth Anscombe, one of the doctrine's most prominent contemporary defenders. I will argue that the DDE, as presented by Aquinas, is most closely replicated by the later works of Anscombe, notably in the 1982 "Medalist's Address" as the "principle of side effects." Other interpretations of the doctrine, including the seminal interpretations presented by the Jesuits and Salmanticenses, as well as in earlier papers by Anscombe, are not as true to the spirit of double effect as expressed by Aquinas himself. I will leave it open for debate whether Aquinas' initial formulation is, in fact, the most useful interpretation: it is certainly the case that later interpretations offer a very clear depiction of the requirements surrounding the doctrine, and this is why the standard interpretation is so frequently invoked in the contemporary debates. The paper proceeds as follows: in part one, I examine the history of the doctrine, focusing on its development from Aquinas through the Salmanticenses and the Jesuits. In the second part, I analyze the early view of the doctrine in the work of Anscombe, from 1957 to 1961, connecting the views of her early work with the standard view of double effect. In the third part, I connect the doctrine of the textual Aquinas with the later view of Anscombe through an analysis of her 1982 "Medalist's Address." One thing that will be absent from this analysis is any substantive moral criticism of the doctrine itself, although it has been challenged by moral philosophers with some frequency for, I would think, at least plausible prima facie reasons
Note(s)
Topic
Type
Article
Date
2006
Identifier
ISBN
DOI
Copyright/License
With permission of the license/copyright holder
Embedded videos