Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil

by T. A. Cavanaugh

Overview

T. A. Cavanaugh defends double-effect reasoning (DER), also known as the principle of double effect. DER plays a role in anti-consequentialist ethics (such as deontology), in hard cases in which one cannot realize a good without also causing a foreseen, but not intended, bad effect (for example, killing non-combatants when bombing a military target). This study is the first book-length account of the history and issues surrounding this controversial approach to hard cases. It will be indispensable in theoretical ethics, applied ethics (especially medical and military), and moral theology. It will also interest legal and public policy scholars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199272198
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/09/2006
Series:	Oxford Studies in Theological Ethics
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	8.60(w) x 5.50(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

T. A. Cavanaugh is Professor and Chair of Philosophy, University of San Francisco.

Table of Contents

1. The history of double-effect reasoning2. The contemporary conversation3. The i/f distinction: distinguishing intent from foresight4. The i/f distinction's ethical import5. DER and remaining considerations

Editorial Reviews

"Thomas Cavanugh has written a splendid book. he provides a succinct yet comprehensive survey of the history of double-effect reasoning (DER) but also a thoroughly engages the present debate and advances one's understanding with original insights. His writing is philosophically rigorous, yet always clear and comprehensible, and it should be accessible to a wide audience. ... If there is such a thing as a page-turner in ethics, this is it. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it."
—Studies in Christian Ethics

"Thomas Cavanaugh has written a fine book and the problem he is struggling with ought to be of great concern to the military profession."
—Journal of Military Ethics

"In this work [Cavanaugh] gives a magisterial account of the history, the philosophical basis, and the continued relevance of double-effect reasoning (DER) in ethics. ... I take the text to be without peer in its engagement with teh current debate, and its clarity in the presentation of DER's claims and historical roots."
—International Philosophical Quarterly

"Cavanaugh's pedagogical overview and critical engagement with the long history of DER's development provides an illuminating guide to the theoretical dimensions of this important mode of moral reasoning."
—American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

From the Publisher