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Consequentialism, Moral Responsibility, and the Intention/ Foresight Distinction1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 January 2009

Justin Oakley  and
Dean Cocking
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Extract

In many recent discussions of the morality of actions where both good and bad consequences foreseeably ensue, the moral significance of the distinction between intended and foreseen consequences is rejected. This distinction is thought to bear on the moral status of actions by those who support the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE). According to this doctrine, roughly speaking, to perform an action intending to bring about a particular bad effect as a means to some commensurate good end is impermissible, while performing an action where one intends only this good end and merely foresees the bad as an unintended sideeffect may be permissible. Consequentialists argue that this is a distinction which makes no moral difference to the evaluation of the initial act in the two cases, given that the overall consequences are the same in each case. In this paper we aim to show that a standard consequentialist line of argument against the moral relevance of the intention/foresight distinction fails. Consequentialists commonly reject the moral relevance of this distinction on the grounds that there is no asymmetry in moral responsibility between intending and foreseeing evil. We argue that even if this claim about moral responsibility is correct, it does not entail, as many Consequentialists believe, that there is no moral asymmetry between acts of intended and foreseen evil. We go on to argue that those consequentialists who do concede the moral relevance of the intention/foresight distinction at the level of agent evaluations cannot consistently make such a concession, and that such a position is in any case untenable, because it entails a complete severance of important conceptual connections between act and agent evaluations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Utilitas , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , November 1994 , pp. 201 - 216
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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Footnotes

1

Research for this paper was supported by Australian Research Council research grant # A59030224. This paper was read at Monash University and at the Australasian Association of Philosophy Annual Conference, University of Melbourne. We would like to thank the audiences for their comments on those occasions. We are also grateful to John Campbell, Lynn Gillam, Helga Kuhse, Julian Savulescu, and Michael Smith for their comments on earlier versions.

References

2 We shall not attempt to defend DDE as a general doctrine about act evaluations. This is because we believe DDE is itself an inadequate attempt to articulate and apply what we believe to be the underlying moral significance of the intention/foresight distinction in the context of act evaluations. Also, we do not challenge consequentialist arguments against the view that the acts/omissions distinction has intrinsic moral significance. For, as many writers have argued, we can intend or foresee consequences of our omissions as we can consequences of our actions, and so the acts/omissions distinction cuts across the intention/foresight distinction; and it is the moral significance of the latter rather than the former that we are concerned with here. For ease of exposition, we will deal mainly with our mental relation to consequences of acts rather than omissions, although our arguments can readily be applied to omissions also.

3 In our view, the most influential line of attack has been presented by Bennett, Jonathan, in ‘Whetever the Consequences”, Ehics, ed. Thomson, J. J. and Dworkin, G., New York, 1968, pp. 211–36Google Scholar; and in ‘Morality and Consequences”, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, ii (1981), 45–116.Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘Modern Moral Philosophy”, Philosophy, xxxiii (1958), 1–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Anscombe, G. E. M., ‘War and Murder”, Nuclear Weapons: A Catholic Response, ed. Stein, Walter, London, 1961, pp. 45–62Google Scholar; and most recently, Quinn, Warren S., ‘Actions, Intentions, and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect”, Philosophy and Public Affairs, xviii (1989), 334–51.Google Scholar

5 For this kind of response, see Glover, Jonathan, Causing Death and Saving Lives, Harmondsworth, 1977, p. 88Google Scholar; Kuhse, Helga and Singer, Peter, Should the Baby Live? Oxford, 1985, pp. 85–7.Google Scholar

6 Harris, John, The Value of Life, London, 1985, pp. 44–5.Google Scholar

7 See for example, Sidgwick, Henry, The Methods of Ethics, 7th edn., London, 1907, Bk. III, ch. 1, § ii, p. 202Google Scholar; Beauchamp, Tom L. and Childress, James F., Principles of Biomedical Ethics, New York, 1989, p. 132Google Scholar; Kuhse, Helga, ‘A Modern Myth. That Letting Die is not the Intentional Causation of Death: some reflections on the trial and acquittal of Dr Leonard Arthur”, Journal of Applied Philosophy, i (1984), 26–7Google Scholar. A good recent statement of this kind of argument may be found in Kuhse, Helga, The Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine in Medicine: A Critique, Oxford, 1987, pp. 149–65Google Scholar. Thus, Kuhse argues that ‘moral agents do not just bring about certain consequences in the world, they bring them about intentionally and are responsible for them because they have brought them about voluntarily and deliberately. Looked at in this light, the distinction between “intended-as-a-means” and “foreseen as a side-effect” becomes immaterial (if it had not already been disposed of). What matters is not whether an agent brings about a foreseen consequence as a means or as a side-effect of what she “does”, but rather that she freely chooses to bring about a state of affairs that includes the said consequence, in preference to another state of affairs which does not” (p. 165).

8 See for example, Audi, Robert, ‘Moral Responsibility, Freedom, and Compulsion”, American Philosophical Quarterly, xi (1974), 5, 13Google Scholar; Barnes, W. H. F., ‘Intention, Motive and Responsibility”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. xix (1945), 230–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brand, Myles, ‘Ability, Possibility, and Power”, The Nature of Human Action, ed. Brand, Myles, Glenview, Illinois, 1970, pp. 130–1Google Scholar; Buckley, F. B., ‘Analysis of “X Could Have Acted Otherwise””, Philosophical Studies, vii (1956), 69–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chisholm, Roderick M., ‘Responsibility and Avoidability”, Reason and Responsibility, ed. Feinberg, Joel, Belmont, 1965, pp. 255–6Google Scholar; D'Arcy, Eric, Human Acts, Oxford, 1963, p. 103Google Scholar; Fitzgerald, P. J., ‘Voluntary and Involuntary Acts”, The Philosophy of Action, ed. White, A. R., Oxford, 1968, p. 143Google Scholar; Glover, Jonathan, Responsibility, London, 1970, pp. 10–11Google Scholar; Hart, H. L. A., ‘Negligence, Mens Rea, and Criminal Responsibility”, Punishment and Responsibility, Oxford, 1968, pp. 136–57Google Scholar; Moore, G. E., Ethics, London, 1978, pp. 11–13, 84–95Google ScholarPubMed; Nowell-Smith, P. H., Ethics, Harmondsworth, 1954, pp. 273ffGoogle Scholar; Oakley, Justin, Morality and the Emotions, London, 1992, pp. 129, 144–7, 151–9Google Scholar; Plamenatz, J., ‘Responsibility, Blame and Punishment”, Philosophy, Politics and Society, (Third Series), ed. Laslett, P. and Runciman, W. G., Oxford, 1967, p. 173Google Scholar; Sankowski, Edward, ‘Responsibility of Persons for their Emotions”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vii (1977), 835–8Google Scholar; and Zimmerman, M. J., ‘Negligence and Moral Responsibility”, Nous, xx (1986), 199–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 See Uniacke, Suzanne M., ‘The Doctrine of Double Effect”, Thomist, xlviii (1984), 211–18.Google Scholar

10 See Uniacke, , p. 211Google Scholar: ‘an agent's not having intended a bad effect of his action which he foresaw as certain or highly probable, is not held to eliminate or lessen his responsibility for it.” See also p. 216: ‘Most of us consider ourselves obliged to avoid bringing about pain and other evils. But often when we set out to achieve what we value and consider right, there are no means available but ones with untoward results for which we have no desire. It is implausible, though, to claim that where this is so we are not responsible for the evil deliberately brought about, or that our responsibility for it is lessened, by virtue of either the fact that we felt no desire for it, or the fact that it was an unavoidable consequence of what we considered right or more important.” See also Duff, R. A., Intention, Agency & Criminal Liability, Oxford, 1990, p. 114Google Scholar; Donagan, Alan, The Theory of Morality, Chicago, 1977, p. 125CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kuhse, , Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine, pp. 150–8.Google Scholar

11 See e.g., Sidgwick, , Bk. I, ch. 5, § iv, pp. 71–2Google Scholar: ‘if I affirm that A is responsible for a harmful act, I mean that it is right to punish him for it; primarily in order that the fear of punishment may prevent him and others from committing similar acts in the future”. See also Smart, J. J. C., ‘Free Will, Praise and Blame”, Determinism, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility, ed. Dworkin, G., New Jersey, 1970, esp. pp. 208–13Google Scholar; Smart, J. J. C., ‘An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics”, Utilitarianism: For and Against, ed. Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, Bernard, Cambridge, 1973, pp. 54–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sprigge, T. L. S., ‘Punishment and Moral Responsibility”, Punishment and Human Rights, ed. Goldinger, M., Cambridge, 1974Google Scholar. See also Duff, , pp. 105–11Google Scholar onconsequentialist views of responsible agency.

12 See Milo, Ronald D., Immorality, Princeton, 1984, pp. 3–4, 21CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and ch. 8, esp. pp. 219–25. See also Beardsley, Elizabeth L., ‘Moral Worth and Moral Credit”, Philosophical Review, lxvi (1957), 304–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beardsley, Elizabeth L., ‘Moral Disapproval and Moral Indignation”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, xxxi (1970), 161–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Blum, Lawrence A., Friendship, Altruism and Morality, London, 1980, pp. 187–90Google Scholar; Cohen, Stephen, ‘Distinctions Among Blame Concepts”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, xxxviii (1977), 149–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Feinberg, Joel, ‘Action and Responsibility” and ‘Sua Culpa”, both in Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility, Princeton, 1970, pp. 119–51 and 187–221Google Scholar; Holborow, L. C., ‘Blame, Praise and Credit”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, lxxii (1971–1972), 85–100Google Scholar; Kenner, L., ‘On Blaming”, Mind, lxxvi (1967), 238–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Oakley, , p. 162Google Scholar; Philips, M., ‘Rationality, Responsibility and Blame”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, xvii (1987), esp. 143–4Google Scholar; Sankowski, , esp. 829, 832, 838Google Scholar; and Squires, J. E. R., ‘Blame”, Philosophical Quarterly, xviii (1968), 54–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Nozick, Robert, Philosophical Explanations, Cambridge, Mass., 1981, p. 363Google Scholar; and Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, New York, 1974, pp. 59–63Google Scholar; cited in Ten, C. L., Crime, Guilt, and Punishment, Oxford, 1987, pp. 95–6.Google Scholar

14 Nozick, , Philosophical Explanations, p. 719 n. 82Google Scholar. See Ten, , p. 96.Google Scholar

15 We are grateful to John Campbell for pointing out this distinction.

16 See for example, Beauchamp, and Childress, , pp. 133–4Google Scholar; Kuhse, , Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine, pp. 161–3Google Scholar; Richards, Norvin, ‘Double Effect and Moral Character”, Mind, xciii (1984), 381–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Adams, R. M., ‘Motive Utilitarianism”, Journal of Philosophy, lxxiii (1976), 467–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Note that motive-utilitarianism, at least as Adams conceives of it, is an objective rather than a subjective consequentialist theory, since the Tightness of an agent's dispositions is determined by the utility they actually result in, rather than by the utility the agent might expect such dispositions to result in, when he is considering cultivating them.

19 Ibid.

20 See Coady, C. A. J., ‘Deterrent Intentions Revisited”, Ethics, xcix (1988), 98–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kavka, Gregory, ‘Some Paradoxes of Deterrence”, Journal of Philosophy, lxxv (1978), 285–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 We owe this objection to Michael Smith.

22 So, for example, Shelly Kagan's argument in favour of taking what he calls the ‘extremist” moral view—i.e., the consequentialist who, for example, says we ought to kill the one to save the five—would presuppose this. See Kagan, , The Limits of Morality, Oxford, 1989.Google Scholar

23 See Stocker, Michael, ‘Act and Agent Evaluations”, Review of Metaphysics, xxvii (1973), 42–61.Google Scholar