Principles, Codes and Doctrines

The following principles and doctrines often figure in discussions of topics in applied ethics. Each of them is controversial, and none of them should be regarded as widely-accepted.

The Doctrine of Double Effect

The doctrine (or principle) of double effect (the DDE) claims that it is sometimes permissible to bring about as a merely foreseen side effect a harmful event that it would be impermissible to bring about intentionally (i.e., as an end or as a means to an end).

For purposes of this doctrine, an agent brings about an event intentionally only if she acts or refrains from acting with the intention, or aim, of bringing that event about (either as an end or as a means to an end). Thus, one may knowingly cause or fail to prevent an event without bringing it about intentionally.¹⁷ On some versions, what is essential is not whether the event is harmful, but whether it is evil. For example, Roman Catholic versions regard death as an evil (something that is intrinsically bad) even when it is not a harm. And on some versions, what is essential is whether the harmful event is intended, not whether the harm itself is intended.

Illustration:

• Strategic Bomber: Strategic Bomber (SB) bombs an enemy munitions plant knowing, but not intending, that civilians living nearby will be killed in the raid.
• Terror Bomber: Terror Bomber (TB) bombs enemy civilians in order to terrorize the enemy.

Intuitively, there is a moral difference between what SB and TB do. And it seems like we can explain this by appealing to the DDE. SB acts only with the intention of destroying a legitimate target, an enemy munitions plant. But TB acts with the intention of killing or harming “innocents,” as a means to her ends.

N.B. No advocate of the DDE claims that it is always permissible to bring about as a merely foreseen side effect a harmful event that it would be impermissible to bring about intentionally, or that it is always permissible to cause harm provided that we do not intend that harm.

In addition to requiring that the harmful (or evil) event be unintended, the DDE also requires both that the act in question be otherwise permissible (i.e., that it would be permissible if it did not bring about that event) and that the harm (or evil) that the act causes not be out of proportion to the benefit (or good) that it does. Thus, SB’s act is permissible only if two further conditions are met: (1) It would be permissible for SB to bomb the enemy munitions plant if doing so would not kill the civilians that it will, in fact, kill; (2) The deaths of those civilians (qua harm or evil) is not out of proportion to the benefit (or good) that would be done by destroying the plant.

Advocates of the DDE may disagree among themselves about whether a particular act is otherwise permissible. And they do disagree about how to understand the latter, proportionality requirement. Traditional formulations require only that the benefits outweigh the costs. Some formulations require that the costs be no greater than is necessary to secure the intended benefits. Michael Walzer proposes that the agent must minimize the bad consequences of her action, even if doing so puts her at additional risk or requires forgoing some potential benefits.¹⁸

The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing

The doctrine of doing and allowing (the DDA) claims that the difference between doing harm and allowing harm to occur sometimes makes a moral difference, a difference between what is right and what is wrong.

Illustration:

• Rescue I: We are hurrying in our jeep to save [five] people…who are imminently threatened by the ocean tide. We have not a moment spare, so when we hear of a single person who also needs rescuing from some other disaster we say regretfully that we cannot rescue him, but must leave him to die.¹⁹
• Rescue II: We are again hurrying to the place where the tide is coming in in order to rescue the [five] people, but this time…the road is narrow and rocky…[and] the lone individual is trapped (do not ask how) on the path. If we are to rescue the five we would have to drive over him.…If we stop he will be all right eventually: he is in no danger unless from us. But of course all five of the others will be drowned.²⁰

Intuitively, it is permissible to save the five in Rescue I but not in Rescue II. And it seems like we can explain this by appealing to the DDA. In Rescue I we can save the five without doing harm to the one. But in Rescue II, we cannot.

N.B. No advocate of the DDA claims that the difference between doing harm and allowing harm to occur always makes a moral difference. Nor does any claim either that it is never permissible to do harm or that it is always permissible to allow harm to occur.

N.B. The doing/allowing distinction and the intend/foresee distinction are different distinctions. Rescue II shows this (as does Strategic Bomber, above).

Advocates of the DDA disagree about how to draw the distinction between “doing” and “allowing.” In other words, they disagree about what the relevant distinction is. One proposal is that the relevant distinction is the distinction between act and omission, or between action and inaction. Another proposal is that it is the distinction between originating or sustaining a causal sequence (initiating one or keeping one going when it would otherwise stop) and diverting a causal sequence (altering its outcome) or allowing one to runs its course (doing nothing to stop one or removing an obstacle or impediment that would otherwise stop one).

Rights as Constraints

Constraint theories of rights claim that rights are constraints, limits or restrictions on what we may do to promote good ends or optimal outcomes—limits on what it is permissible to do, even to achieve noble ends or the greater good (including the ends of promoting respect for rights and of minimizing the violation thereof).²¹

Rights are constraints so long as the following is true:

• that the consequences of infringing a right would, on the whole, be better than the consequences of respecting that right does not suffice to make infringing that right permissible.

To claim that moral rights are constraints is thus not to claim that moral rights are absolute constraints, or that it is never permissible to infringe a moral right. Using terminology introduced by Thomson (1986), we may distinguish between “infringing” a right and “violating” a right. To infringe a negative right is to do something that someone has a right against you that you not do, while to infringe a positive right is to not do something that someone has a right against you that you do. And to violate a right is to infringe a (positive or negative) right impermissibly. In this terminology, the claim that moral rights are absolute constraints is the claim that moral rights may never be permissibly infringed, or that every infringement of such a right is a violation thereof. And that claim is one that most constraint theorists (including Thomson and Dworkin) reject.

Constraint theories are in many respects the most intuitive theories of rights. But instrumental theories of rights are a prominent alternative to constraint theories. Instrumental theories claim that moral rights are instruments, or means, either for promoting valuable ends or outcomes (e.g., well-being or equality) or for acknowledging the moral status of persons. Such theories assign rights and respect for rights a derivative status, as means to ends or as ways of acknowledging moral personhood or aspects thereof. Nevertheless, they may assign practical priority to rights and respect therefor. That is, they may claim that, for practical purposes (deliberation, justification, etc.), rights function as if they were constraints.

Moral rights remain a complicated and under-theorized subject. And rights-based moral arguments frequently beg disputed questions. But regardless of which theory of rights we accept, it is always presumptively wrong (immoral or unethical) to infringe a moral right. However, this presumption is rebuttable so long as the right in question is not absolute, and any claim that a right is absolute will be controversial.

For more information about moral rights, see the discussion of moral rights in the previous section.

The Harm Principle

The Harm Principle is generally proposed as a constraint on the liberty of individuals. That is, it identifies certain circumstances in which it is morally legitimate to restrict, or interfere with, the actions or person of another. The Harm Principle exists against a background of existing rights and/or liberties. (For more information about rights and liberties see here.) If you do not believe that individuals have various rights or liberties to do things or be places, then there is nothing wrong with preventing individuals from engaging in these activities. However, if someone does have a right to do x, then any attempt to interfere with them doing x looks to be morally wrong, unless there is some justifying factor. The Harm Principle is proposed as just such a justifying factor.

The Harm Principle, was initially formalized by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. Mill proposed the Harm Principle as an account of the morally legitimate limits on liberty:

“...the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.” ²²

Crucially, Mill distinguishes between harm and ‘mere offense’. Harms are those actions that are injurious, or cause a setback in those interests of identifiable individuals in which they have rights. So the mere perception of harm or injury is not sufficient to justify a claim of violence as self-defense, the harm in question must meet certain standards.

The scope of the Harm Principle is restricted to other-regarding actions. Other-regarding actions are those actions that affect others. If you stick your arm out in such a way that it intentionally pokes someone else, then the act of sticking your arm out is other-regarding. Other-regarding actions can be contrasted with self-regarding actions. Self-regarding actions are those that affect only the agent. Sticking your arm out in the privacy of your room in order to stretch your shoulders is a self-regarding action.

The Harm Principle can be used to regulate the interactions amongst individuals, constituting an influential justification of the limited use of inter-personal force. It only justifies the use of force against a person if the person is both an agent, and is intentionally performing an other-regarding action. Note that a true agent of an action is one who, with respect to that action: is free (not coerced); acts voluntarily (competent to choose) and is informed (has sufficient information to choose knowledgeably).

The Harm Principle is also applied to interactions between governments or societies and individuals. Specifically, it can be used as way of justifying or rejecting the various intrusions of government regulation on individual lives. If the Harm Principle is the primary justification of government regulation, and its scope is restricted to other-regarding actions, then the government is not justified in regulating the self-regarding actions of citizens. Such self-regarding actions include such things as the sensible use of recreational drugs.

Professional Codes of Ethics

To the extent that professional codes of ethics have any standing it is as general agreements about relevant ethical principles in a particular profession. This makes them more like implicit contractual agreements than moral theories. Good professional codes of ethics are ones the people in those professions are justified in agreeing to. Bad professional codes of ethics have no moral standing or significance. A promise or agreement to do something immoral has no moral force in the same way that a contract to do something illegal has no legal force. You can make something morally permissible obligatory through an agreement, but you cannot make something morally wrong (impermissible) permissible or obligatory simply by agreeing to it. This means that professional codes of ethics are only as good as the principles or theories that they contain. When you are considering applying such a code you should be careful to consider the moral legitimacy of the underlying principles or theories. And note that you do not have to accept or use all of the principles expressed, you can pick and choose the ones that are legitimate or useful in the circumstances. That said, such codes of ethics are useful sources for identifying principles and theories that are particularly relevant to a profession of area of inquiry.