The Doctrine of Double Effect

Many people today wonder what caused Stephen Paddock to shoot 605 people, including himself. Acting like an average and moral man prior to the shooting, Paddock makes it difficult to understand the reason behind his actions. While we cannot deduce the exact cause of Paddock’s evil act, we can study the general roots of the immoral actions of good people through other historical examples. Although many believe that humans are innately good and act accordingly, events throughout history have proven that the potential self-gain that evil can bring drives seemingly good people to do horrible things when it outweighs in their sight the gratification of acting morally. Egocentrism or a lack of fear of punishment, because they cause a danger comparable to that caused by greed, can lead even the most moral person astray.

THEME: The line between good and evil is sometimes unclear, and as a result, people often think that they are doing the right thing when it is actually the wrong action, and vice versa.

When assessing the morality of a person’s actions, there are many different ethical perspectives from which to analyze. One could use a deontological viewpoint and judge the person’s intentions as the key factor of ethicality, or one could use consequentialist principles and gauge the outcome or consequences of a specific action as its moral determinant. With these varying styles of moral valuation, there is inevitably going to be moments where viewpoints contradict each other and assess certain actions as good and just and other actions as bad and unjust. Instances where this occurs is where someone does, for example, something with good intentions but ends up with negative outcomes, or, conversely, when someone does something with bad or poor intentions but the outcome turns out positively. Situations like these illustrate how different ethical perspectives may conflict with one another. A keen example of a confliction like this is displayed in an HBO television series, Dexter, where the main character is a sociopathic serial killer who only targets other sociopathic killers. It is a tricky scenario because in many deontological perspectives, the morality of the action itself is immoral and evil, but in some consequentialist perspectives, the outcome of the situation would consider Dexter Morgan’s actions ethical.

Number one was one that had a lot of emotional impact that was taking place throughout the duration of the song. It expressed a tone color that was orange and very intense. There was a lot of conflict that was taking place between Ruth and Fredrick during this time. The melody showed pitches that made up the different parts of the song. For example, both Ruth and Fredrick take turns on who takes the melody of the song depending on who is dominant at certain points of the song. Fredrick is more dominant and the beginning and then Ruth takes the attention later on. Harmony took place as Ruth and Fredrick are singing different parts at the same time and the tones are sounding simultaneously. With this, at the intense parts there are dissonances

In contrast, an Ensign or Second Lieutenant in the United States Military are restricted under the ethics and laws of war, which require them to enforce a well-balance in all three categories of moral basis. Their virtues and ethics are the building foundation for their decision making. The Doctrine of Double Effect allowed them to measure the worth of sacrificing the safety of non-combatant and their subordinates in order to complete a mission. When comparing to the terrorist cell leaders, the naval officer’s mission is to protect the peace and prevent humanitarian abuses by ensuring the safety of civilians. The U.S. Military have always has a belief that they will “leave no one behind”, meaning protecting their own troops is a very important

A consequentialist/ utilitarian perspective on Dexter’s deeds would be determined by weighing the outcomes. An example

With the “good” dictating decisions made in the Consequential Theory, we humans already tend to focus on the “good” behind every situation and decision in our daily lives. A good example is the situation of giving money to a homeless person. Someone who comes across a homeless person may think that if they gave money, the good that could come out of it is that they are able to buy themselves a decent meal with it. Now a days, just one meal can mean the difference between life or death for anyone who does not have access to resources. However, the other side of the dilemma in terms of not giving money to the homeless person is that there could be another homeless person who may need the money just as much and there are other people who may give the previous homeless person money just as well.

Consequentialism is ordinarily distinct from deontology, as deontology offers rightness or wrongness of an act, rather than the outcome of the action. In this essay we are going to explore the differences of consequentialism and deontology and apply them to the quandary

Dr. Camille should not continue the study according to the Natural Law Theory. The Natural Law Theory believes that "rightness of actions is determined by nature itself rather than by the laws and customs of societies or the preferences of individuals" (page 926). Furthermore, the Natural Law Theory consists of two main principles, the principle of double effect and the principle of totality (pages 928-929). Moreover, the principle of double effect focuses on the idea that each action has both a good and a bad effect (page 928). Also, the principle of double effect believes that actions must be morally good, the bad effect cannot be the mean in which the good effect is achieved, motivation must be the good effect only, and finally the good effect must be equivalent or greater than the bad effect (page 928).

The doctrine of double effect if often invoked to explain the permissibility of an action that causes a serious harm, such as the death of a human being, as a side effect of promoting good ends. It is claimed that sometimes it is permissible to cause such harm as a side effect of bringing about a good result even though it would not be permissible to cause such harm as a means to bringing about the same good end. The reasoning is summarized with the claim that sometimes it is permissible to bring about as merely foreseen side effect a harmful event that it would be impermissible to bring about intentionally (Uniacke 1984).

The Doctrine of Double Effect is the process in which someone must sacrifice some bad to achieve more good. According to Alison McIntyre of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2014) defines the concept as “The doctrine (or principle) of double effect is often invoked to explain the permissibility of an action that causes a serious harm, such as the death of a human being, as a side effect of promoting some good end”. This is often referred to in the military as “collateral damage”. While your goal is to not have any unintended casualties, if the threat is so great that you must take the chance and harm civilians, you take it.

The Doctrine of Double Effect is the regulation or standard of twofold impact that is frequently summoned to clarify the reasonability of an activity that causes a genuine mischief, for example, the demise of a person, as a reaction of advancing some great end. As indicated by the standard of twofold impact, in some cases it is passable to bring about a damage as a symptom or “twofold impact,” of realizing a decent outcome despite the fact that it would not be allowable to bring about such a mischief as a way to achieving a similar decent end. Is there an ethical contrast between doing hurt and merely permitting hurt? If not, there ought to be no ethical complaint to dynamic willful extermination in conditions where detached killing is admissible.

The meaning of double of effect can be quite controversial. The principle of double effect teaches that one might perform a good action even if foreseen that a bad effect might occur (Becker, n.d). However, this is based on four principles which involves that the action has to be good itself, that the bad result was not directly intended, that the good result is not a direct casual result from the bad result, and that the good result is proportionate to the bad result (Becker, n.d). In this case of the pregnant patient with uterus cancer, from a deontologist perspective, it would be the duty of the doctor to try to save both lives but in case where it is impossible to save both lives, the doctor would save the live that could be saved and that

This question concerns the application of direct effect to the facts in question. In particular, Fergie requires advice on whether or not he can rely on Directive 15/2012 and enforce his EU law rights in the national court. Fergie takes legal proceedings against Charlston Council to claim compensation for his injury.

For example, in Movie “the lone survivor”, the squad’s duty is to conduct a surveillance mission in Afghanistan. However, during the mission they discovered two local people. They have two option, and any option will result in different outcome. The first option is to kill them to ensure the mission success, in spite of those people are innocent. But, the outcome they will face is the condemnation, due to the murder. The second option is to let them go, based on the virtue and ideology from public opinion. However, the consequence they will suffer is to confront the attack and death threat from the Taliban, because of the report of those released people. It is related to the deontology and consequentialism. If you are a deontology, you will choose the second option. Contrarily, if you are a consequentialism, the first one will be your