Double Effect

[dairygirl4u2c]

i'm looking to poke holes in the 'principle of double effect'.
consequentialists/proportionalists such as myself are known for thinking the idea is mostly rationalization.

here's the critieria for the principle:
[quote]This set of criteria states that an action having foreseen harmful effects practically inseparable from the good effect is justifiable if upon satisfaction of the following:

the nature of the act is itself good, or at least morally neutral;
the agent intends the good effect and not the bad either as a means to the good or as an end itself;
the good effect outweighs the bad effect in circumstances sufficiently grave to justify causing the bad effect and the agent exercises due diligence to minimize the harm.[/quote]

A is a bad guy, who says he know where a bomb is that will go off in a month, in NYC. he's already let the bombs explode destroying cities, so we have no reason to doubt him, NYC is just another on hte list.
can we, in the name of principle, put in him in a jail that just happens to be surrounded by insects that might just happen to eat at him? or a jail on a buoy that sits on the water ocean where waves are sure to pound him eventually?
the idea being, the jail is the good intention, and anything is just what happens to occur?
how about put him in a jail and let him starve in hopes of getting him to confess? isn't that the same as letting babies die when ya remove the tubes in an ectopic pregnancy? and so if it's okay to starve him, how is that any different than the other jail things if nature is taking its course?

is the idea, that in things like ectopic pregnancies, you don't intend the baby to die, but in the other expanles, you intend the bad thing, even if you have another good intention primarily ie the jail? i guess this must be it.
maybe my hypos weren't the greatest.

how about. instead of ectopic pregnancies, you start removing babies who can't survive on their own but that would cause death to the mother. how is this didfferent than removing the tube? you don't intend the baby to die in either situation, and the intent to to save the mother.
couldn't this argument also be used in in vitro fertilization? you just have the eggs sitting aside and they're just going to die, no one's directly killing them, and the intent to is further a pregnancy (which in a sense is better than none per survival of one's genes- some is better than none even if it means some will die)
it seems on these later issues that it'd just be argued to be intrinsically wrong per the first prong, of the criteria. if intrinsically wrong, why isn't the ectopic preg intrinsically wrong? doesn't it start to become arbitrary if you just start definiing things as intrinsically wrong, that hinder your scheme of criteria?

Edited March 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

im actually generally opposed to in vitro, without having giving it a whole lot of thought, granted.
but principle of double effect type reasoning has got me second guess that, in entertaining whether it's a valid principle.
you can see how much of a slippery slope it can become.

[dairygirl4u2c]

i know the principle is used to justify collateral damage in war.
does this mean, if you know (think but aren't sure, perhaps?) osmama is in small town A, and that killing osama would prevent more deaths than would blowing in town A, could you then bomb town A to smithereens given you don't intend to kill the folks there, and all the other criteria are met?

people will be hesitant to do it, but if it's 'truth' ie the principle, why not do it always, if you sure of the outcomes etc?

per the war osama example, i wouldn't be surprised if many's knee jerk response would be to say ya shouldn't do that (not sure the reasoning, but), yet these same people would say it's okay to blow up the nukes back in WWII. i guess since i can't see teh reasoning, it just shows people's idiosyncracies than any bad arguments per double effects, but. just interesting.

Edited March 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

could jack kavorkian or suicide doctors be legit in upping the drugs to the point of death, as long as the patient is suffering?
true, the intention here is also to kill the patient, but why does it matter if another doctor B has no intention to kill but will up the dosage to stop the suffering even though he knows it will indeed kill.
is the morally blame worthiness here, then, not the acts but rather than intention?
that could be the case, i suppose, but it seems sort of weird.

eg, you could also have someone who's honest intention is to put jail bird in jail and the insects eat at the prison, per my earlier hypo, and this is okay as long as he sincerly didn't mean for the inmate to be eaten by insects.
again, that could be the case, i suppose, but it seems sort of weird.

[dairygirl4u2c]

yeah this whole thread really shows nothing new i suppose, i don't think i've shown principle effects to be necessarily wrong, but it does give a lot of tought ethical situations.

here is something random just cause i feel like asking:
[quote]A trolley is running out of control down a track. In its path are 100 people who have been tied to the track. Fortunately, you can flip a switch, which will lead the trolley down a different track to safety. Unfortunately, there is a single person tied to that track. Should you flip the switch?[/quote]

v.
[quote]As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?[/quote]

end do not justify folks, would have to say you cannot push the man. i guess they'd argue double effects for the first one, they didn't intend it?

couldn't ya argue that you didn't intend the fat man to die, but that his death was only a side effect certainty like the first one?

when justifying the means, isn't the bad act not usually intended? such that it'd be a double effect, arguably?

---
when your life is in danger, like you're on a raft on stormy water, you can legally tie your boat to a dock, even if it means destroying the dock, if it's the only reasonable way of saving your life. while this is legal, isn't it immorally justifying the means, or is double effect the argument?
if double effect is the argument, can't ya steal a gun, if it's the only way to stop a man from blowing up a city?
i guess in this paragraph im not showing why double effects, ends means, arguments are wrong, just that it seems like consequentialism is the better argument.

Edited March 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

how about this one:
[quote]As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards 100 people. As in the first case, you can divert it onto a separate track. On this track is a single person. However, beyond that person, this track loops back onto the main line towards the 100 peole, and if it weren't for the presence of that person, who will stop the trolley, flipping the switch would not save the 100. Should you flip the switch?[/quote]

you could reasonably argue principle of doble effects in teh original hypothetical.
but now, could you not argue double effects, given that you have knowledge that the man will stop the train and it's part of the scheme? that simple extra track makes it now impermissible?

ie, if you argue the intent is to divert the track, as you did in the first one, then that argument couldn't work given you know it's not naturally going to divert the track to any avail unless it kills the one man.

i'd argue you have to flip the switch. ya cant argue that you're neutral and can sit back will hundred die- simply being present makes you obligated to flip teh switch, and any thing else, even not doing anything, is immoral.

Edited March 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

an airplane is going down. it can either hit town A or B. population 100 v. 10000
it's natural course is going to town B.
since there's a choice, ya have to go with the natural course and can't divert it, correct,since your intention is to kill lesser people? (your intention isnt anythig to do with a nice landing, the intetion is actually killing people) that is, ya can't argue lesser of two evils.
though, one would argue this reasoning could extend to the voting box, such that you'd have to vote third party, even if effectively there's no choice when the two main parties aren't that great per some objecitonal stance (eg, abortion

[LivingStone]

Relativism/Proportionalism/Consequentialism cannot be appropriately applied in every moral scenario; where the Principle of Double Effect would need to. A good source on why Proportionalism and Consequentialism fall short in regards to the Moral Sphere is the encyclical Veritatis Splendor, especially paragrah 75.

"[i]75. But as part of the effort to work out such a rational morality (for this reason it is sometimes called an "autonomous morality" ) there exist false solutions, linked in particular to an inadequate understanding of the object of moral action. Some authors do not take into sufficient consideration the fact that the will is involved in the concrete choices which it makes: these choices are a condition of its moral goodness and its being ordered to the ultimate end of the person. Others are inspired by a notion of freedom which prescinds from the actual conditions of its exercise, from its objective reference to the truth about the good, and from its determination through choices of concrete kinds of behaviour. According to these theories, free will would neither be morally subjected to specific obligations nor shaped by its choices, while nonetheless still remaining responsible for its own acts and for their consequences. This "teleologism", as a method for discovering the moral norm, can thus be called — according to terminology and approaches imported from different currents of thought — "consequentialism" or "proportionalism". The former claims to draw the criteria of the rightness of a given way of acting solely from a calculation of foreseeable consequences deriving from a given choice. The latter, by weighing the various values and goods being sought, focuses rather on the proportion acknowledged between the good and bad effects of that choice, with a view to the "greater good" or "lesser evil" actually possible in a particular situation.

The teleological ethical theories (proportionalism, consequentialism), while acknowledging that moral values are indicated by reason and by Revelation, maintain that it is never possible to formulate an absolute prohibition of particular kinds of behaviour which would be in conflict, in every circumstance and in every culture, with those values. The acting subject would indeed be responsible for attaining the values pursued, but in two ways: the values or goods involved in a human act would be, from one viewpoint, of the moral order (in relation to properly moral values, such as love of God and neighbour, justice, etc.) and, from another viewpoint, of the pre-moral order, which some term non-moral, physical or ontic (in relation to the advantages and disadvantages accruing both to the agent and to all other persons possibly involved, such as, for example, health or its endangerment, physical integrity, life, death, loss of material goods, etc.). In a world where goodness is always mixed with evil, and every good effect linked to other evil effects, the morality of an act would be judged in two different ways: its moral "goodness" would be judged on the basis of the subject's intention in reference to moral goods, and its "rightness" on the basis of a consideration of its foreseeable effects or consequences and of their proportion. Consequently, concrete kinds of behaviour could be described as "right" or "wrong", without it being thereby possible to judge as morally "good" or "bad" the will of the person choosing them. In this way, an act which, by contradicting a universal negative norm, directly violates goods considered as "pre-moral" could be qualified as morally acceptable if the intention of the subject is focused, in accordance with a "responsible" assessment of the goods involved in the concrete action, on the moral value judged to be decisive in the situation.

The evaluation of the consequences of the action, based on the proportion between the act and its effects and between the effects themselves, would regard only the pre-moral order. The moral specificity of acts, that is their goodness or evil, would be determined exclusively by the faithfulness of the person to the highest values of charity and prudence, without this faithfulness necessarily being incompatible with choices contrary to certain particular moral precepts. Even when grave matter is concerned, these precepts should be considered as operative norms which are always relative and open to exceptions.

In this view, deliberate consent to certain kinds of behaviour declared illicit by traditional moral theology would not imply an objective moral evil. [/i]

I hope to come back and explain more, but I don't necessarily have time. I'm also searching for a good source for the Principles of Double Effect.

Hope this helps.

[LivingStone]

[url="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_06081993_veritatis-splendor_en.html"]Veritatis Splendor[/url]

[LivingStone]

Here is Saint Thomas Aquinas' "Principle of Totality and Principle of Double Effect" Both are very important:

"[i][b]The Principle of Totality[/b]: An individual may not dispose of his organs or destroy their capacity to function, except to the extent that this is necessary for the general well-being of the whole body. Destroying an organ or interfering with its capacity to function prevents the organ from achieving its natural purpose.

[b]The Principle of Double Effect[/b]: Aquinas recognized that there are times when the action you think you ought to do will have good and bad effects. In effect, you have an ethical dilemma or conflict.

Under these circumstances, it is permissible to perform an action causing bad effects if you meet these four conditions:

1. The action itself is morally neutral or morally good.

2. The bad effect is not the means by which the good effect is achieved.

3. The motive must be the achievement of the good effect only.

4. The good effect is at least equivalent in importance to the bad effect.[/i]"

[dairygirl4u2c]

well i do concede that i haven't shown, as i hoped, that one could always find a way to use 'double effects' in such a way to be try rationalizing being a 'ends never justifies' (deontologist), hwile in fact effectively being a 'consequentialist'.

but i do think i've shown plenty of really weird results of being a non-conseqauentialist.

i especially like the last train hypo compared to the first, and the 'remove the baby itself', arguments, in that regard.

[LivingStone]

Ok, last point. If you don't understand what St. Thomas means by Effects, actions, means, ends, objects, etc., please refer to the link on Veritatis Splendor for a complete analysis of the moral sphere and different aspects thereof.

[dairygirl4u2c]

[quote]when justifying the means, isn't the bad act not usually intended? such that it'd be a double effect, arguably?[/quote]

in law, when a person intends act that would next to certainly or certainly result in a bad thing, but they didn't per se intend the results, they are treated the same as if they intending the results directly.
but, it's a point that lawyers would argue about.

here, if you go with the norm in law, then any bad act could not be done even if you don't intend the bad results per se. but, if you go with the arguments that sometimes work in teh law, then you could effectively justify the means.

eg, again, i don't intend the fat man to die when i push him, even though i know he's going to with next to certainty, therefore im not justifying hte means.
the law would generally say, per intent (maybe not culpability), that i intended his death. but, it's something that's arguable in the law, and i'd say it's at least plausiblly arguable here too.

this would be the best way i have of saying that the double effects folks are effectively able to be consequentialits, per fancy foot work argumentatikon.
except, even if you granted the 'substnatial certainty" thing as something that might be pemissible in pushing the fat man, i'm not sure it's something you could do in say torturing someone. cause when torturing, you intend the result of pain etc.
i suppose there are shades of what a deontologist could conceiveably argue, in their attempt to be as less rigid as possible.

Edited March 3, 2009 by dairygirl4u2c