Abstract
This chapter is an evaluation of the principle of double effect. The principle of double effect is a principle congenial to the just war theory and is appealed to by just war theorists. It is a principle that under certain circumstances can relieve perpetrators of war actions that inflict suffering on innocents (or have other harmful or evil effects) from responsibility for those effects. The principle asserts that an action, such as a war action, done with an intention to bring about a good effect is permissible though it has other harmful effects, provided that those harmful effects are not intended, even if they are foreseen. This principle, it will be argued, is deeply flawed, and if accepted as valid in a wartime application, it can be used to justify virtually any horrendous war action.
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- 1.
Joseph Mangan, “An Historical Analysis of the Principle of Double Effect,” Theological Studies, 10 (1949), p. 43. Quoted in “Doctrine of Double Effect” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available, 2017, via http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/double-effect/
- 2.
G.E.M. Anscombe, “War and Murder,” reprinted in Moral Problems, 3rd ed., ed. James Rachels (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), pp. 403–404.
- 3.
Anscombe, “War and Murder,” p. 404.
- 4.
Anscombe, “War and Murder,” p. 405 (Anscombe’s emphasis).
- 5.
Anscombe, “War and Murder,” p. 405.
- 6.
St. Thomas Aquinas, ST II-II, q. 64, a. 7. Available, 2018, via http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/03d/1225-1274,_Thomas_Aquinas,_Summa_Theologiae_%5B1%5D,_EN.pdf
- 7.
Daniel A. Dombrowski, Christian Pacifism (Philadelphia PA: Temple University Press, 1991), p. 23. Dombrowski’s reference is to ST II-II, q. 64, a. 6, which, along with Dombrowski’s attendant argument, we noted in Chap. 5.
- 8.
Anscombe, “War and Murder,” p. 405. Anscombe argues, as we have noted, that it “is nonsense to pretend that you do not intend to do what is the means you take to your chosen end.” “Otherwise,” she says, “there is absolutely no substance to the Pauline teaching that we may not do evil that good may come.”
- 9.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 2nd ed., (New York: Basic Books, 1992), p. 153.
- 10.
Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, p. 155 (Walzer’s emphasis).
- 11.
Robert L. Holmes, On War and Morality (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989) p. 196.
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Kellenberger, J. (2018). The Principle of Double Effect. In: Religion, Pacifism, and Nonviolence. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95010-5_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95010-5_6
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