Content area
Full text
Philosophical Studies (2007) 133:257283 Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/s11098-005-4603-4
ALISON HILLS
INTENTIONS, FORESEEN CONSEQUENCES AND THE DOCTRINE OF DOUBLE EFFECT
ABSTRACT. The diculty of distinguishing between the intended and the merely foreseen consequences of actions seems to many to be the most serious problem for the doctrine of double eect. It has led some to reject the doctrine altogether, and has left some of its defenders recasting it in entirely dierent terms. I argue that these responses are unnecessary. Using Bratmans conception of intention, I distinguish the intended consequences of an action from the merely foreseen in a way that can be used to support the doctrine of double eect.
1. INTRODUCTION
When you formulate a plan and put that plan into action, you do many things intentionally. For example, when you execute your plan to go shopping to buy some food, you intentionally get in your car, drive to the shops, buy the food and return home. It is natural to divide the things you do intentionally into those that you intend, and those that you merely foresee but do not intend.1 The intuitive dierence is that you intend what you chose the plan in order to bring about: if you choose a plan in order to bring about E, you intend E as an end; if you decide to bring about M in order to bring about E, you intend M as a means. In carrying out your plan, you may expect to bring about some consequence F, though you did not choose the plan in order to bring about F; then F is merely foreseen, not intended.
For example, you devise your shopping plan in order to get food: getting food is your intended end. You foresee, but do not intend, that you will wear down the tyres of your car, for you did not choose to go out in order to wear down your tyres.
258
ALISON HILLS
According to the doctrine of double effect (DDE), there is a distinction between the intended and the foreseen consequences of an action, and that distinction is morally signi-cant: it is morally worse to intend some harm, than merely to foresee bringing it about.2 According to the absolutist version of DDE, it is morally...