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    The principle of double effect does not permit a harmful ... — Carmelics
    Statements
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    Home/Moral Responsibility
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    The principle of double effect does not permit a harmful act merely because the agent's ultimate aim is good and the harm was regretted rather than welcomed.

    Justice & PunishmentMoral Responsibility
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    2 reasons for
    1 reason against

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aquinas's distinction in Summa Theologiae II-II Q.64 grounds permissibility in the structure of the act's causal order, not merely the agent's psychological attitude toward harm.
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    • 2.An agent's regret at harm tracks affective disposition, not the rational structure of means-end reasoning that double effect's intention condition actually evaluates.
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    • 3.If regret sufficed to render harm unintended, virtually any atrocity could be licensed by a sufficiently remorseful perpetrator, collapsing the doctrine's action-guiding content entirely.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Warren Quinn's 1989 account distinguishes direct from oblique intention by whether the victim's suffering is exploited as part of the agent's operative plan, independent of the agent's emotional response to that suffering.
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    • 2.Foot's trolley problem analyses demonstrate that the impermissibility of the surgeon harvesting one patient to save five persists even when the surgeon is genuinely grief-stricken, confirming that regret cannot transform instrumental harm into mere side-effect.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 1.Double effect requires not only that the agent's ultimate aim is good, the proportionality condition is satisfied, and the harm is regretted and minimized.
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    • 2.Double effect additionally requires that the harm not be implicated as part of the agent's means to the good end — i.e., the harm must not be instrumentally intended.
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    • 3.Harms that are brought about as part of the agent's means to a good end may be prohibited by double effect even if those harms were produced regretfully and only for the sake of the good end.
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    Moral ResponsibilityJustice & Punishment

    Related

    An agent's regret at harm tracks affective disposition, not the rational structu...Aquinas's distinction in Summa Theologiae II-II Q.64 grounds permissibility in t...Double effect additionally requires that the harm not be implicated as part of t...Double effect requires not only that the agent's ultimate aim is good, the propo...
    +4 moreShow less
    Foot's trolley problem analyses demonstrate that the impermissibility of the sur...Harms that are brought about as part of the agent's means to a good end may be p...If regret sufficed to render harm unintended, virtually any atrocity could be li...Warren Quinn's 1989 account distinguishes direct from oblique intention by wheth...

    Similar

    A harm caused as part of an agent's means to a good end may be prohibi...95%The principle of double effect prohibits harms that are instrumentally...92%Harms that are brought about as part of the agent's means to a good en...88%Being regretted or not being the ultimate aim is insufficient to rende...86%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: double-effect
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    The principle of double effect is directed at well-intentioned agents who ask whether they may cause a serious harm in order to bring about a good end of overriding moral importance when it is impossible to bring about the good end without the harm. 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 th
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (2 for, 1 against)
    Edits
    1 edit