Experimental Ethics: An Even Greater Challenge to the Doctrine of Double Effect
In his article Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics, Neil Levy (2011) argues that “experimental results from the sciences of the mind suggest that appeal to [the Doctrine of Double Effect] might be question-begging.” As Levy frames the Doctrine, the Doctrine is a moral principal that is meant to ground the intuitive moral difference between effects that are brought about intentionally versus those that are merely foreseen. More specifically, the Doctrine is supposed to ground the intuition that, when certain conditions are met, it is morally permissible to bring about a bad outcome that is merely foreseen, but, under these same conditions, it would not be morally permissible to bring about a bad outcome intentionally. Or, another way to put this, the Doctrine claims that it takes more to justify causing harm intentionally than it takes to justify causing harm as a merely foreseen side effect (Sinnott-Armstrong, Mallon, McCoy, & Hull, 2008). The intellectual roots of the Doctrine ...