The principle of double effect affects Catholic (and arguably Protestant) moral teaching on subjects from war to abortion, meaning it’s highly relevant to our debates over the use of drone strikes and the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar. In a nutshell, the principle is that ”sometimes it is permissible to bring about as a merely foreseen side effect a harmful event that it would be impermissible to bring about intentionally.”
According to twentieth-century analytic philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, it’s a crucial but easily abused principle—which makes it all the more worth exploring here. In an essay (PDF here) on the ethics of killing the innocent in war, she argues that behind Catholics’ lack of concern on that subject lay “double-think about double-effect.” On the necessity of the principle, she writes:
The distinction between the intended, and the merely foreseen, effects of a voluntary action is indeed absolutely essential to Christian ethics. For Christianity forbids a number of things as being bad in themselves. But if I am answerable for the foreseen consequences of an action or refusal, as much as for the action itself, then these prohibitions will break down. If someone innocent will die unless I do a wicked thing, then on this view I am his murderer in refusing: so all that is left to me is to weigh up evils. Here the theologian steps in with the principle of double-effect and says: “No, you are no murderer, if the man’s death was neither your aim nor your chosen means, and if you had to act in the way that led to it or else do something absolutely forbidden.” Without understanding of this principle, anything can be—and is wont to be—justified, and the Christian teaching that in no circumstances may one commit murder, adultery, apostasy (to give a few examples) goes by the board. These absolute prohibitions of Christianity by no means exhaust its ethic; there is a large area where what is just is determined partly by a prudent weighing up of consequences. But the prohibitions are bedrock, and without them the Christian ethic goes to pieces. Hence the necessity of the notion of double effect.
Yet, she continues, the idea is often mis-applied:
At the same time, the principle has been repeatedly abused from the seventeenth century up till now. The causes lie in the history of philosophy. From the seventeenth century till now what may be called the Cartesian psychology has dominated the thought of philosophers and theologians. According to this psychology, an intention was an interior act of the mind which could be produced at will. Now if intention is all important—as it is—in determining the goodness or badness of an action, then, on this theory of what intention is, a marvellous way offered itself of making any action lawful. You only had to ‘direct your intention’ in a suitable way. In practice this means making a little speech to yourself: “What I mean to be doing is…”
This perverse doctrine has occasioned repeated condemnations by the Holy See from the seventeenth century to the present day. . . .
And in the passage perhaps most relevant to us today:
This same [abuse of double effect] is used to prevent any doubts about the obliteration bombing of a city. The devout Catholic bomber secures by ‘a direction of intention’ that any shedding of innocent blood that occurs is ‘accidental’. I know a Catholic boy who was puzzled at being told by his schoolmaster that it was an accident that the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were there to be killed; in fact, however absurd it seems, such thoughts are common among priests who know that they are forbidden by the divine law to justify the direct killing of the innocent.
It is nonsense to pretend that you do not intend to do what is the means you take to your chosen end. Otherwise there is absolutely no substance to the Pauline teaching that we may not do evil that good may come.
The four conditions for using the principle in Catholic moral teaching, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, are:
1. The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent.
2. The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may permit it. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary.
3. The good effect must flow from the action at least as immediately (in the order of causality, though not necessarily in the order of time) as the bad effect. In other words the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.
4. The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect.
Properly applying the principle to concrete situations, even with such conditions spelled out, will doubtless remain difficult, but I found Anscombe’s essay illuminating. You can read the whole thing here as a PDF.
November 28th, 2012 | 8:09 pm
In brief, then, this seems to address the old question of “If you had a time machine, would it be ethical to go back and kill Hitler as a baby?” question.
But in terms of conventional warfare, #3 seems esp. problematic. The atomic bombing of Japan probably ended WWII early and saved hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions, of lives than if we had gone the D-Day route with a full scale land invasion of Japan. Yet the immediate effect was clearly the killing of innocents….ending the war early happened later on in time and was secondary in terms of causality. We knew innocents would be killed, it was only a guess that the weapon would intimidate the military’s leaders into early surrender. This would seem to apply to much of WWII on all sides of the conflict.
November 28th, 2012 | 8:40 pm
There is no debate about the use of drones by those who have the power to decide to use them and the opinions of anyone else really do not matter.
November 28th, 2012 | 11:32 pm
“. Yet the immediate effect was clearly the killing of innocents…”
The problem with the categorization of innocence is that it inevitably, we have to consider that it was the Axis powers that initiated the War, and those decisions were attributable to Hitler, Mussolini, a small group of henchmen. Almost everybody else was “innocent” (Depending on how culpable you hold Hirohito, either him and/ or the Japanese military should be considered culpable as well.)
Was a Pennsylvania man enlisting in the Marines in response to an existential threat any less innocent that those poor souls who met their end a blinding flash in August?
It is often considered that civilians are innocent and uniformed personnel fair game. Yet many civilians in Germany eagerly supported Hitler and many Allied soldiers would never have left their homes, let alone killed another human being unless compelled by exigent circumstances.
My great Uncle was that young man. One of the victims of that bomb was his daughter, who wasn’t born until 1946 but afflicted with terrible deformities that surely may have resulted from her father’s assignment in Hiroshima clean up detail prior to discharge. She died before her first birthday. Still, I remain convinced that it was the only possible decision, that an invasion would have killed more Japanese civilians, but would have added many more U.S. soldiers to the death rolls. Rarely factored in is the necessity of obtaining a swift end, because it was obvious before VE day, that the alliance with the Soviets would crumble as they sought increased influence in the World.
War is an awful thing, and it favors the unprincipled in it’s execution, in that they care only about effectiveness. Those who want to prosecute hostilities with some attention to morality are often left with unclear choices that range between bad and worse.
November 29th, 2012 | 12:40 am
“The principle of double effect affects Catholic (and arguably Protestant) moral teaching on subjects from war to abortion…”
Would that the teachings of Jesus affected us like they did of old.
http://christianpacifismblog.wordpress.com/
November 29th, 2012 | 7:23 am
Adam
The problem with the categorization of innocence is that it inevitably, we have to consider that it was the Axis powers that initiated the War, and those decisions were attributable to Hitler, Mussolini, a small group of henchmen.
Yes but isn’t this the problem with the ‘double effect’ reasoning? An insane madman holds a gun to the heads of two babies and says he will shoot them unless you do something wicked, like stab an innocent person to death. Double effect seems to say you are ethical in refusing to stab the innocent person even though the wicked man will follow through and kill two innocent babies. In fact double effect seems to say you may not kill the woman even if you’re going to save more lives in the process.
And I agree it gets strained to make a ethical distinction between soldiers and civilians. Civilians are sometimes more responsible for their regime’s bad behavior than soldiers, who are often young, inexperienced and drafted without regard to their will.
The answer might just be that war can never be reconciled with ethical behavior. I’m a bit reminded of the end of the movie Doubt….spoiler alert……where the old nun confides to her younger sister that she used a lie to trip up a priest she suspected of wrongdoing. The younger nun is shocked that she would lie, but her reply is “in the pursuit of justice, one sometimes steps away from God……but there is a price to pay”.
November 29th, 2012 | 10:55 am
“An insane madman holds a gun to the heads of two babies and says he will shoot them unless you do something wicked, like stab an innocent person to death. ”
But that wasn’t THE choice and it wasn’t OUR choice. We knew full well that the ethic that gave us kamikaze attacks would have no life spared in an attempt, no matter how futile, to repel an invasion. We would have likely killed more babies, plus added our own personnel in such an invasion.
So resistent to surrender was the Imperial martial ethic, that even after Hiroshima, they refused to quit.
I believe that the use of overwhelming force to end a war (Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, by the Empire’s insistence) is far more just than the lunacy that was the “limited engagement” prosecution of the war in Vietnam.
Look at the results: Japan, after the occupation became a peaceful and productive nation. Vietnam gave us a waste of lives, a nation that is still in the grips of autocracy and relative poverty, and and the domestic moral anarchy of the 1960′s which afflicts us today.
November 29th, 2012 | 1:26 pm
I believe that the use of overwhelming force to end a war (Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, by the Empire’s insistence) is far more just than the lunacy that was the “limited engagement” prosecution of the war in Vietnam.
Adam Baum,
The issue was not whether using the atomic bomb on the Japanese was justifiable or not. Rather, it was whether it could reasonably justified by the principle of double effect. Anscombe said:
If you hold to the Catholic principle that it is never permissible to directly kill an innocent person, I don’t see how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be justified. It is nonsense to say there was no intention to kill civilians. (The same goes for a great deal of the bombing done by both sides in Word War II.)
If you want to argue that to abide by Catholic ethics would have meant losing World War II, or prolonging it in such a way that more people would have died than actually did, you may be right. But you have tossed out the principle that it is never permissible to take an innocent human life (even to save a thousand or a million more innocent lives).
November 29th, 2012 | 9:08 pm
But that wasn’t THE choice and it wasn’t OUR choice. We knew full well that the ethic that gave us kamikaze attacks would have no life spared in an attempt, no matter how futile, to repel an invasion. We would have likely killed more babies, plus added our own personnel in such an invasion.
Or we could have just choosen not to invade, kept Japan surrounded and cut off from oil and industrial supplies until it sued for peace. Japan is a resource starved nation. Near the end of WWII it had no ability to replace its aircraft carriers and project force beyond its shores.
I believe that the use of overwhelming force to end a war (Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, by the Empire’s insistence) is far more just than the lunacy that was the “limited engagement” prosecution of the war in Vietnam.
What ‘limited engagement’ was there with Vietnam? What major military forces were left unbombed in Vietnam? What cities? Unless you mean expanding the war to a nuclear armed China how much more engagement do you think we should have done?
David
If you hold to the Catholic principle that it is never permissible to directly kill an innocent person, I don’t see how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be justified. It is nonsense to say there was no intention to kill civilians. (The same goes for a great deal of the bombing done by both sides in Word War II.)
Just from a first glance it seems worse than that. It seems pretty hard to justify just about any war, even one that neatly limits itself to uniformed soldiers only.
November 30th, 2012 | 4:30 pm
I agree with David Nichol and Boonton. The majority of military leaders (including Eisenhower and, I believe McArthur) were opposed to using the A Bomb. Truman refused to listen to the military leaders. You can google this topic and read the testimony of many generals and statesmen warning that the act was unjust and would lead to more such acts in the future. These men all agreed that the blockade was working and that Japan WOULD surrender soon on account of it. To say that the Japanese would never surrender without dropping the boom is false. The country’s ambassador was already negotiating terms for surrender through Russia and Truman must have known that. The US insistence on “unconditional surrender” was unwise (if not novel); it was not going to save any lives, rather the opposite, it prolonged the war.
December 4th, 2012 | 4:10 pm
@kelso
Let me get this straight. You claim that the guys with stars were opposed to using the A-bomb due to an expectation that it would be used again.
Can we assume “again” would be within 67 years? It has not been used again, so I question that reasoning, because there has been no additional use. Then again, I’m not one of the people that thinks that Eisenhower or any general or “statesmen” was infallible and I saw one attributed quote as “that awful thing”, which suggests that he objected to the nature of the implement, rather considering the consequences of the alternative.
MacArthur gave conflicting stories regarding his consideration of atomic weapons in Korea, plus Norman cousins indicated that
“When I asked General MacArthur about the decision to drop the bomb, I was surprised to learn he had not even been consulted.”
Which brings up another point. There weren’t a lot of people who were even aware of the bomb. There was some indication that Truman wasn’t aware of it until he took office. One site critical of the use of the bomb buttresses it’s claims with quotes that are largely statements of philosophical ideals, rather than military alternatives (Joseph Grew’s comments come to mind) Ex post posturing is not the same thing as being opposed to an act ex ante.
To not insist on unconditional surrender would have been irresponsible. It was a necessary disinfectant of the ideologies that gave rise to the war in the first place. To say it was “unwise” is your value judgment and my opinion, unwise. It also was consistent with what imposed upon Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:German_instrument_of_surrender2.jpg
@ David Nickol:
“If you hold to the Catholic principle that it is never permissible to directly kill an innocent person, I don’t see how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be justified.”
Actually to interpret things the way you are, NO bombings are ever justified. There were many people killed all over Europe by bombings, whether it was Dresden or by darkening the skies with B-17′s as the Allies targeted the Nazi war machinery. But somehow, I never see any quite as much handwringing or sympathy for people killed by conventional ordinance.
“It is nonsense to say there was no intention to kill civilians.”
There’s a difference between intentional and unavoidable. Intentional assumes choice-choice sank with the Arizona and the rest of the fleet on the day of infamy.
This is not a choice between the bomb and kumbaya, it was the choice between the bomb and an invasion. What you don’t seem to grasp is that war presents terrible choices.
“But you have tossed out the principle that it is never permissible to take an innocent human life (even to save a thousand or a million more innocent lives).”
So, you’d have been happier if we invaded Japan and in a futile resistance against dishonor, had our soldiers going door to door killing conscripted civilians, where killing “hostiles” would have been by necessity a primary objective?
@Boonton
“What ‘limited engagement’ was there with Vietnam?”
Since it was McNamara’s idea, you’ll have to consult him. I don’t know what other alternatives were possible or considered, but there’s no reason to believe that prosecuting the war as it was done and nuclear war were the sole possible choices.
In summation, it’s easy for anybody here or quoted here, including Anscombe (and I’m more loathe to accept the blackboard theoretizing of philosophers on war than I am the theoretizing of college economics professors on running business-there’s no record of sucess in doing what they say)
To argue in a vacuum about such matters when they aren’t actually faced with those decisions, without the heavy fog induced by exigency and uncertainty. If I were Truman, I’d have rather faced judgment having ended the war swiftly, rather than squandered more lives in an invasion, of unknown duration, uncertain objectives and death-where the killing would have been an a direct objective, rather than a consequence.
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