Double-Effect Reasoning

T.A. Cavanaugh devotes this book to an exploration and defence of what is usually called the ‘principle (or doctrine) of double effect’; he prefers to talk about ‘double effect reasoning’ (‘DER’). He proceeds systematically through chapters on the history of DER, the modern debate, the meaning and the moral significance of the distinction between what is intended and what is not intended but nevertheless foreseen, and the relation between DER and issues such as the need for reparation for justifiably causing harm, the doing/allowing distinction, and certain legal issues. The book is clearly and methodically written. One particular contribution to the debate to be found in this book is the historical section, showing the development of the casuistry of ‘double effect’ from Thomas Aquinas by a succession of later writers up to the nineteenth century. Another is the sustained attempt to explain why the intention/foresight distinction is morally relevant. Cavanaugh first rejects two proposals: that agents should be understood to be more fully responsible for intended than for merely foreseen consequences, and that intentions are relevant to the moral assessment of agents rather than of actions. On the first, Cavanaugh proposes that agents are fully responsible for the merely foreseen consequences of their actions, but not ‘as intended’, only ‘as foreseen’ (p. 122); this has moral importance, for reasons to be set out later. On the second, he explains that it is impossible to specify actions without reference to the intentions with which they are done, since actions are ‘necessarily constituted by epistemic and volitional states’ (p. 130). There is no moral assessment of mere outward behaviour; moral criticism and justification come into play only when we know about agents' beliefs, desires and intentions

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