A STUDY OF THE PRINCIPLE OF DOUBLE EFFECT, ITS EVALUATION IN CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS AND CATHOLIC MORAL THEOLOGY, AND ESPECIALLY ITS ROLE IN THE THOUGHT OF RICHARD MCCORMICK

The principle of double effect (hereafter called the PDE) has been employed for the past four hundred years by Catholic moralists to determine the permissibility of certain acts of life-taking. While the PDE has been regularly invoked (and generally not been used by Protestant ethicists) in situations involving killing of non-combatants in wartime, jeopardizing one's own life, killing of fetuses in hysterectomies, and sterilization, the debate has only recently arisen in analytic philosophy as to whether the PDE is a logically defensible notion. The consensus is that the PDE's key distinction, that of "intended" versus merely "foreseen" effects of human acts, is not a real one. The PDE has also been found wanting by a group of widely respected Catholic moral theologians (Knauer, Schuller, and McCormick among them) not because its key distinction is non-existent, but because they contend that consequences play a more central role in the moral evaluation of "tough cases" than the Catholic tradition is inclined to admit.; Chapter One traces the historical emergence of the PDE, beginning with Thomas Aquinas's teaching on self-defense. In Chapters Two and Three I argue that both the failure of contemporary moral philosophers to recognize the classical distinction between what an agent intends and merely foresees and the refusal of recent Catholic moralists to take that distinction seriously are reflections of the impact of utilitarianism on philosophical and theological ethics, as well as on popular moral opinion. I argue for the meaningfulness of the distinction between intention and foresight and for the continued but cautious use of the PDE in a somewhat modified form. In the third chapter I contend that the Catholic moralists in question have made several basic philosophical wrong turnings in arriving at a consequentialist ethic in which the PDE is largely unnecessary. After briefly discussing Knauer's notion of "commensurate reason" and Van der Poel's moral criterion of "community-building," I examine McCormick's notion of "proportionate reason."; The fourth chapter continues to probe McCormick and is critical of his moral philosophical presuppositions, his use of "value" language, and the distinction he makes between "moral" and "nonmoral" evil. Chapter Five suggests the theological considerations which must enter into decisions which may involve life-taking. Failure to pay adequate attention to these considerations has rendered McCormick's ethics less than theological. My own constructive argument is that the PDE may be used to decide a small but important group of moral cases. Rather than contributing to bad casuistry, the PDE reminds the Christian community of the narrow limits of permissible life-taking.; I conclude that the PDE has an enduring usefulness in the development and performance of a Christian Ethic. That is, the PDE "belongs" within a Christian ethic insofar as it serves to remind that tradition of basic moral truths which it must frame and be cognizant of in the formation and execution of its community ethic. Furthermore, the PDE functions as a most helpful practical guide for moral decision-making in some of the most morally vexing issues of social and medical ethics that we are called to adjudicate. Thus, I find the PDE to be both philosophically legitimate and theologically necessary in the future of (at least) Christian ethics.