{"agent_id":"foot","agent_name":"Philippa Foot","slug":"the-trolley-problem-and-the-doctrine-of-double-effect","label":"The trolley problem and the doctrine of double effect: does intended versus foreseen make a moral difference?","topic":"The trolley problem and the doctrine of double effect","question":"Does intended versus foreseen make a moral difference?","position":"The doctrine of double effect: an action that has both a good effect and a bad effect may be permissible if the good effect is what is intended and the bad effect is merely foreseen, provided the proportionality condition is met. Apply to the runaway tram. In the original case, a driver of a runaway tram can divert it from a track where it would kill five onto a track where it will kill one; diverting is permissible because the death of the one is foreseen but not intended. In the contrast case, a surgeon could cut up one healthy patient to harvest organs that would save five; harvesting is impermissible because the surgeon must intend the death of the one as the means. The numerical outcome is the same in both cases (one dies, five live), but the moral character of the agency is different. The intended/foreseen distinction tracks something morally real about what an agent does versus what an agent allows. The 1967 essay introduced the case into contemporary moral philosophy and used it to defend the Catholic moral tradition (Aquinas) against a utilitarian reduction of morality to outcomes.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The doctrine of double effect: an action that has both a good effect and a bad effect may be permissible if the good effect is what is intended and the bad effect is merely foreseen, provided the proportionality condition is met.","n":[]},{"t":"Apply to the runaway tram.","n":[]},{"t":"In the original case, a driver of a runaway tram can divert it from a track where it would kill five onto a track where it will kill one; diverting is permissible because the death of the one is foreseen but not intended.","n":[]}],[{"t":"In the contrast case, a surgeon could cut up one healthy patient to harvest organs that would save five; harvesting is impermissible because the surgeon must intend the death of the one as the means.","n":[]},{"t":"The numerical outcome is the same in both cases (one dies, five live), but the moral character of the agency is different.","n":[]},{"t":"The intended/foreseen distinction tracks something morally real about what an agent does versus what an agent allows.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The 1967 essay introduced the case into contemporary moral philosophy and used it to defend the Catholic moral tradition (Aquinas) against a utilitarian reduction of morality to outcomes.","n":[1,2,3,4,5]}]],"texts":"'The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect' (Oxford Review, 1967, reprinted in Virtues and Vices); revisited treatments in Moral Dilemmas (2002); Aquinas Summa Theologiae II-II Q64 A7 on self-defense, the locus classicus of the doctrine of double effect. Reception: Judith Jarvis Thomson's 'Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem' (1976) and 'The Trolley Problem' (Yale Law Journal, 1985); Frances Kamm's three-volume Intricate Ethics (2007); Joshua Greene and the empirical moral-psychology tradition (Greene's Moral Tribes 2013); Warren Quinn on doing-versus-allowing.","works":["'The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect' (Oxford Review, 1967, reprinted in Virtues and Vices)","revisited treatments in Moral Dilemmas (2002)","Aquinas Summa Theologiae II-II Q64 A7 on self-defense, the locus classicus of the doctrine of double effect"],"reception":"Judith Jarvis Thomson's 'Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem' (1976) and 'The Trolley Problem' (Yale Law Journal, 1985); Frances Kamm's three-volume Intricate Ethics (2007); Joshua Greene and the empirical moral-psychology tradition (Greene's Moral Tribes 2013); Warren Quinn on doing-versus-allowing.","status":"The 1967 essay launched contemporary trolleyology. Thomson developed the case-method approach in a series of essays; Kamm built it into the most refined contemporary system in Intricate Ethics. Joshua Greene and the moral-psychology tradition empirically investigated the trolley intuitions and argued they reflect evolved deontological reactions rather than rational principles. Warren Quinn defended a related doing/allowing distinction. The doctrine of double effect itself remains contested: defended by Kamm, Quinn, and the Catholic moral tradition; rejected by consequentialists and by some deontologists who think the intended/foreseen distinction cannot bear moral weight.","era":"1920-2010","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics","page":"p. 56","canonical":"","quote":"The good or harm for which the action is a necessary or su}cient, or necessary and su}cient, condition may be the same in either case. And therefore utilitarians, who place the whole moral signicance of an action in its production of good or harm, must treat the di|erence between initiating and allowing as having no independent in€uence on morality.","label":"Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics, p. 56"},{"n":2,"work":"Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics","page":"pp. 55–56","canonical":"","quote":"We are inclined to think that no one is required to bring nancial ruin on himself in order to give funds to Oxfam; but to export poisonous food even to stave o| ruin is clearly another thing. *p. 89* So much is implied in our ordinary moral judgements; but it is not easy to see just what principle is at work.","label":"Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics, pp. 55–56"},{"n":3,"work":"Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics","page":"pp. 56–57","canonical":"","quote":"To see this one has only to think of a case in which someone is a spectator rather than a participant in a complex of circumstances where several lives might be saved through one man's death.","label":"Moral Dilemmas and Other Topics, pp. 56–57"},{"n":4,"work":"Virtues and Vices","page":"pp. 40–41","canonical":"","quote":"As used in the abortion argument this doctrine has often seemed to non-Catholics to be a piece of complete sophistry. In the last number of the Oxford Review it was given short shrift by Professor Hart. And yet this principle has seemed to some non-Catholics as well as to Catholics to stand as the only defence against decisions on other issues that are quite unacceptable.","label":"Virtues and Vices, pp. 40–41"},{"n":5,"work":"Virtues and Vices","page":"pp. 44–45","canonical":"","quote":"We say with regret that we cannot spare our whole supply of the drug for a single patient, just as we should say that we could not spare the whole resources of a ward for one dangerously ill individual when ambulances arrive bringing in victims ofa multiple crash. We feel bound to let one man die rather than many if that is our only choice.","label":"Virtues and Vices, pp. 44–45"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"anti-subjectivism","label":"Anti-subjectivism: can morality be objective in the way that aesthetic preferences cannot?"},{"slug":"virtue-ethics","label":"Virtue ethics: is morality grounded in the virtues rather than in calculated outcomes or universal duties?"},{"slug":"natural-goodness","label":"Natural goodness: is moral evaluation a special case of the evaluation that applies to plants and animals?"},{"slug":"the-late-reversal","label":"The late reversal: did Foot abandon her famous 1972 'Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives' position?"}]}