double-effect reasoning doing good and avoiding evil nov 2006

[...]... ought to seek knowledge and live with others while shunning ignorance and eschewing offence to our neighbours Eating, drinking, clothing, sheltering, copulating, teaching, and talking instance acts seeking good and avoiding evil Yet, as we pursue good and avoid evil, a tangled mass confronts us The good we do results in evil; the evil we avoid prevents the realization of some good The oncologist who... Rather, I address the questions of whether and how one can do good and avoid evil when good and evil inextricably bind by considering the most pointed instances of the same, namely, those in which human lives stand in the balance I answer these questions by considering instances of homicide for a number of reasons First, in doing so I follow a venerable tradition and the contemporary debate both of which... inextricably bind at times In such circumstances how ought we to act? If one were to pursue the good, one would cause the very evil one ought to avoid Yet, if one were to avoid the associated evils, one would not achieve the goods of health, discipline, merited praise, and so on In such circumstances, can one do good and avoid evil? If so, how? To engage the most serious cases in terms of which thinkers have addressed... applied to wrongful acts and the law 190 5.7 DER in law 192 5.8 DER and Roman Catholic moral theology 196 Bibliography 202 Index 211 Introduction Do good Avoid evil Taken generally, these foundational moral norms offer us clear guidance The good has the nature of what we ought to pursue; evil, what we should flee We should preserve ourselves and avoid destruction We ought to reproduce and rear our offspring... errs in thinking that ethics primarily concerns such conflicted life -and- death situations More generally, one goes awry in holding that circumstances in which good inextricably binds with evil preoccupy ethics Nonetheless, responses to such cases answer the questions this work addresses; namely, whether and how one can do good and avoid evil in circumstances inseparably joining the two Moreover, how one... the goods and evils in each scenario Comparing these—counting the dead and living and giving weight solely to such consequentialist considerations leads one in the last pair of cases, for example, to close the doors and to kill the submariners for food In a consequentialist ethic all choices (including hard ones) have essentially the same solution: opt for that scenario having the greatest net good. .. Common misunderstandings of the i/f distinction's relevance 119 4.2 The first-order/second-order distinction 122 4.3 The distinction's ethical relevance 134 5 DER and remaining considerations 164 5.1 DER and reparations 165 5.2 DER and allowing 166 5.3 DER and the wrongful acts of other agents 177 5.4 Double effect, non-combatant casualties, and the laws of war 180 5.5 Double effect and public policy... response requires that the agent has some good reason for doing what will certainly result in the deaths of innocents This account of the submarine case and associated cases I call double-effect reasoning, or DER.9 To suggest the continuity of a focus upon intentions in the evaluation of double-effect cases with our more ordinary judgements of actions, consider a novel such as Jane Austen's Emma When the... behaviour (and his caution not to reveal his actual intent to Emma, who had mischievously prevented the match of Harriet and Mr Martin), this impossible match of Harriet and George Knightley is, ‘far, very far, from impossible,’ from Emma's perspective (ibid., III xi 423) The importance of intent in understanding and evaluating conduct plays a large role in this novel, as in other works by Austen and other... Foot (1985), Nagel (1986), Quinn (1989), and Sterba (1992) Boyle and Donagan separately argue that non-absolutist anti-consequentialists superfluously employ double effect (Boyle 1991; Donagan 1977, 156–63) I do not argue against those who do not acknowledge exceptionless moral norms and use double-effect reasoning I argue for the tenability of double-effect reasoning, assuming the exceptionless moral . seeking good and avoiding evil. Yet, as we pursue good and avoid evil, a tangled mass confronts us. The good we do results in evil; the evil we avoid prevents the realization of some good. The oncologist. of whether and how one can do good and avoid evil when good and evil inextricably bind by considering the most pointed instances of the same, namely, those in which human lives stand in the balance neighbouring traditions of thought which have entered into dialogue with it. Double-Effect Reasoning Doing Good and Avoiding Evil T. A. Cavanaugh CLARENDON PRESS ċ OXFORD Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6 DP Oxford