Principle of double effect pdf. Principle of double effect 2019-03-03
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The Principle of Double Effect
Extension of the principle There are other situations of conflict between some good and some evil that arise in human life, which do not seem to be resolvable by the principle of double effect, at least not if causes, effects, means, end, etc. Palliative care for children and adolescents with cancer includes interventions that focus on the relief of suffering, optimization of function, and improvement of quality of life at any and all stages of disease. The intended good does not outweigh the likely harm. Hayagriva, the horse-faced demon, seeing his chance, made off with them. This care is most effectively provided by a multidisciplinary team.
Measurements and Main Results: Patients were interviewed after study enrollment about their experiences with pain. Some members of the U. I will return to this issue in later posts. Removal of Civilians and Civilian Objects from the Vicinity of Military Objectives Each party to the conflict must, to the extent feasible, remove civilian persons and objects under its control from the vicinity of military objectives. We can, however, learn to recognize the particular purposes, values, and aesthetic responses that shape the sense of self whose integrity is threatened by pain, disease, and the mischances of life.
Patients with colon cancer reported more pain than patients in other disease categories. We can summarize this by noting that for certain categories of morally grave actions, for example, causing the death of a human being, the principle of double effect combines a special permission for incidentally causing death for the sake of a good end when it occurs as a side effect of one's pursuit of that end with a general prohibition on instrumentally causing death for the sake of a good end when it occurs as part of one's means to pursue that end. We get a principled reason to support affirmative action, environmental protection laws, and consumer protection laws. Ryan exhibited verbal or physical signs of distress or pain. Empirical research by Joshua Knobe 2003, 2006 has demonstrated that the ways in which we distinguish between results that are intended or brought about intentionally and those that are mere side effects may be influenced by normative judgments in such a way as to bias our descriptions. Wherefore, if a man in self-defense uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful, whereas, if he repel force with moderation, his defense will be lawful. If Quinn's view is correct, and if the distinction between direct and indirect agency is easier to draw clearly, and is not subject to redescription under the influence of our moral judgments about permissibility, then perhaps the objections outlined above can be answered.
(PDF) Analgesia, virtue, and the principle of double effect
The popularity and intuitive appeal of this alleged illustration of double effect may have two sources. Even if it is equally certain that the two bombers will cause the same number of civilian deaths, terror bombing is impermissible while tactical bombing is permissible. This treatment approach, recommended by many medical societies, has been associated with numerous benefits including longer survival. Those who say that it would be impermissible to perform an abortion to save the life of a pregnant woman say that this is because this would involve intending the death of the fetus. Discussions of the Trolley Problem and the relevance of the principle of double effect to explaining our intuitions about it can be divided into three groups. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect, he should do so.
(PDF) Analgesia, virtue, and the principle of double effect
Thus, the double effect doctrine forbids the achievement of good ends by wrong means. Disputes about the permissibility of killing a fetus in order to save the life of a pregnant woman have often been thought to take this form. However, if it is perceived that too much is given, they risk prosecution for committing euthanasia. Thus, self-sacrifice and killing in self-defense might involve permissibly causing death as a means to a good end, while dispensing medication to relieve pain in terminally ill patients and the strategic bombing of military targets might involve causing death as a side effect. Just and Unjust Wars, New York: Basic Books, pp. It is reasonable to assume that agents who regret causing harm will be disposed to avoid causing the harm or to minimize how much of it they cause. On this point, popular understandings of double effect, with the second assumption in place, may diverge from the most defensible version of the principle.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Second Part of the Second Part, Question 64, Article 7. Some critics of the principle of double effect have maintained that when double effect has been invoked, substantive independent justifications for causing the kind of harm in question are implicitly relied upon, and are in fact, doing all of the justificatory work. Some discussions of double effect wrongly assume that it permits acts that cause certain kinds of harm because those harms were not the agent's ultimate aim or were regretted rather than welcomed. Both the benefit to her health and the death of the child follow from the surgery with equal directness or immediacy in the order of causality, though the death of the child is prior in the order of time. The author tries to show his point through a few examples.
This point of view may not be consistent with invoking Double Effect as a justification: if, in the course of treating a dying patient, death is not viewed as a harm, then Double Effect does not apply see Allmark, Cobb, Liddle, and Todd 2010. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary. A person is never allowed to perform a morally bad action. However, if it is perceived that too much is given, they risk prosecution for committing euthanasia. Early terminal sedation could be expected to hasten death as a side effect of providing palliative care for unusually recalcitrant pain. These independent considerations are not derived from the distinction between intended and merely foreseen consequences and do not depend on it Davis 1984 , McIntyre 2001. Actually, the principle of the double effect is often used in the ordinary affairs of human life by persons who are unaware of the speculative requirements of this principle but are acting on common sense.
Donating money to charity is good; using mint toothpaste instead of another flavor is morally neutral. A third common misinterpretation of double effect is to assume that the principle assures agents that they may do this provided that their ultimate aim is a good one that is ordinarily worth pursuing, the proportionality condition is satisfied and the harm is not only regretted but minimized. Killing one's assailant is justified, he argues, provided one does not intend to kill him. On this view, the distinction between direct and indirect harmful agency is what underlies the moral significance of the distinction between intended and merely foreseen harms, but it need not align perfectly with it. Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Background: Intensivists must provide enough analgesia and sedation to ensure dying patients receive good palliative care.
