The Classical Formulation of PDE (Timmons, 78-9)

1. The Classical Formulation of PDE (Timmons, 78-9) • Whenever an action would produce at least one good and one bad effect, then one is permitted to perform the act if and only if all of the following are met: • The act, apart from its effect, is not wrong; • The bad effect is not intended by the agent. There are two principal ways in which an effect might be intended: • Any effect that is a chosen end of action is intended. • Any effect that is a means for bringing about some intended end is also intended. • The bad effect is not out of proportion to the good effect. • (That is, the badness is much smaller than the goodness. How much? Well, nobody has specified the ratio.)

2. Criticisms of PDE Counterintuitive Results Existence of Alternative Descriptions Doubts about the Relevance of the Distinction between Intended harm and Merely Foreseen harm

3. Problem 1. Counterintuitive Results • Consider Foot’s “Gas” example. • Suppose that if a doctor operates to save the lives of five patients, this will inevitably release some poisonous gas so that he will end up killing a sixth person who cannot be moved out of harm’s way. • Suppose there are other ways to save the five patients. We will then think that the operation is wrong. • However, the doctor does not intend the harm to the sixth person. The act of operation itself seems all right. Thus, the operation is prohibited by PDE only if the harm to the patient is out of proportion.

4. Can the Proportionality Condition Help? • However, remember what PDE says about the “trolley” example. PDE says it is permissible to change the course of the “trolley” only as far as the bad consequence – one person’s death – is not out of proportion to the good consequence – the survival of five people. • Consistency seems to require that if this is not out of proportion, one person’s death is not out of proportion to the survival of five people in Foot’s “Gas” example. • That is, if it is permissible to change the course in the “trolley” example, the operation is also permissible in the “Gas” example; and if the operation is not permissible, changing the course is neither permissible. Either way, PDE diverges from ordinary views somewhere.

5. Problem 2: Alternate Descriptions: Ex. Self-Defense (Timmons, 84-5) • PDE is often used by many (ex. Aquinas) to justify certain types of self-defense. However, consider the following case. • Suppose that someone is coming closer to kill you with a gun. You are convalescent and weak, and all you have is a stick of dynamite. If you light and throw it to your assailant, he will certainly die and you will be saved. If you do so, do you intend to kill the assailant? Or do you intend to stop the assailant with merely foreseeing the death of the assailant? • Depending on how your intention is described, PDE makes different judgments.

6. Which Description Should be Used? Permissible! (The Catholic Theologians?) Means: Stopping the attacker End: Saving oneself from death or serious injury Action: Throwing a dynamite Side effect: Death of the attacker OR Impermissible! End: Saving oneself from death or serious injury Means: Blowing the attacker to bits Action: Throwing a dynamite

7. Problem 2: Alternative Descriptions • In many cases like “self-defense”, it seems that there is no way to say which description is appropriate to use in evaluating the permissibility of the action. If so, PDE cannot give determinate non-arbitrary judgments. • This is why PDE might call one and the same action right and wrong. (Q3)

8. Problem 3: RelevanceThe Loop Variant of the “Trolley” Example • Rex is the only passenger on a trolley whose driver has just shouted that the trolley’s brakes have failed, and who then died of the shock. On the track ahead of him are five lean people; the banks are so steep that they will not be able to get off the track in time. The track has a spur leading off to the right, and Rex can turn the trolley onto it. Rex knows the tracks don’t continue to diverge – they circle back. But there is one very fat person on the right-hand track, who can’t move swiftly due to the steepness of the bank. Rex can turn the trolley, killing the fat guy and having his body stop the trolley from hitting the five; or Rex can refrain from turning the trolley, letting the five die and their bodies stop the trolley from hitting the one.

9. The Loop Variant of the “Trolley” Example ☻ ☺☺☺☺☺ Rex ☺ • If Rex turn right to save the five, he intends hitting the fat guy as a means. PDE says it is • Compare this w/ the original case, where Frank doesn’t intend harm. Is Rex’s turning right more problematic than Frank’s? impermissible. But is it really impermissible?

10. Problem 3: Relevance • In considering the Bomber examples and the Trolley examples, you might wonder whether the distinction between intended harm as means and merely foreseen harm is, even if possible, really morally relevant: a merely foreseen harm might be as objectionable as an intended harm as means. • After all, the damage to the victim does not change whether it is intended or not. • Thus, the defender of PDE needs to show that an intended harm as means might be more objectionable than a merely foreseen harm.

11. (Ir)relevance of Intending Harm as an End • Thus far we have only talked about a harm intended as a means. Is the distinction between intending harm as an end and merely foreseen harm morally relevant? That is, does a harm intended as an end makes an action wrong? • [The Populist Dictator] Suppose in a very poor country, there is a rich dictator who oppresses people’s liberties and democratic activities. He aims at solidifying his oppressive regime. As a means, he intendedly donates a great portion of his private riches, which are earned in a decent way, to an organization helping the needy part of the populace. • According to PDE, this act of donation will be… wrong and prohibited because the dictator intends a bad effect – solidifying his oppressive dictatorship – as the end. • But you might think the action of donation is not wrong: the guy with a bad end is wicked, but he still takes a right action.

12. Clarification • These critics doubt that the distinction between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm is relevant to the moral status of the action. • Thus, they criticize the PDE, which determines the permissibility of actions on the basis of this distinction. • However, they do not necessarily doubt that the distinction is relevant to the moral status of the character. • The critics can hold, for example, that a person is wicked or blameworthy (1) if he intends a bad thing as an end, or (2) if he intends a bad thing as means when he thinks he can take a better and no less efficient means to his end. • The critics might say: “Do we decide what to do considering proper intentions? No. Intentions might matter in determining the moral status of the agent’s character, but not of the action.”

13. A ‘Puzzle’ about Ordinary Principles

14. A ‘Puzzle’ about Ordinary Principles • Both the doing/allowing distinction and the intending/merely foreseeing distinction tries to vindicate such ordinary principles as “Don’t kill” or “Don’t harm”. • However, there is one general worry about this project. • Upon reflection, ordinary principles – including “Don’t lie” and “Don’t break promises” etc. – might be paradoxical and perhaps irrational. It seems that these principles prohibit an action even if the action prevents many instances of the same action.

15. Williams’ Jim and Twenty Indians • Jim finds himself in the central square of a small South American town. Tied up against the wall are a row of twenty Indians, in uniform. A heavy man in a sweat-strained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge and, after a good deal of questioning of Jim which establishes that he got there by accident while on a botanical expedition, explains that the Indians are random group of the inhabitants who, after recent acts of protest against the government, are just about to be killed. They are innocent scapegoats to remind other possible protestors of the advantages of not protesting….

16. Continued • However, since Jim is an honored visitor from another land, the captain is happy to offer him a guest’s privilege of killing one of the Indians himself. If Jim accepts, then as a special mark of the occasion, the other Indians will be let off. Of course, if Jim refuses, then there is no special occasion, and Pedro here will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived, and kill them all. Jim, with some desperate recollection of schoolboy fiction, wonders whether if he got hold of a gun, he could hold the captain, Pedro and the rest of the soldiers to threat, but it is quite clear from the set-up that nothing of that kind is going to work: any attempt at that sort of thing will mean that all the Indians will be killed, and himself….What should he do?

17. A ‘Puzzle’ • In this example, by one killing, Jim can prevent twenty killings. • According to normal interpretations, such ordinary principles as “Don’t kill” and “Don’t harm” tell Jim not to do so. However, it seems paradoxical to many people. If the point of the principles is to stop killings or harms, it seems permissible to kill or harm one to prevent more killings or harms. However, the principles prohibit this. (Q2) • Timmons thinks that it is the problem of absolute (exception-less) principles, but it occurs for any principles that prohibit taking some action (harming, killing, lying etc.) that will prevent more of the same actions. • Why not instead adopt principles, such as “Prevent killings as much as possible”, “Stop lying as much as possible” etc.? (As you might notice, these revised principles are consequentialist-friendly.)

18. Alternatives about the fundamental obligation of not harming • Argue that we can make the doing/allowing distinction in a non-question-begging way, and that this distinction is morally relevant. • Argue that we can make the intending/merely foreseeing distinction in a clear way, and that this distinction is morally relevant. • Search for another distinction that is morally relevant. • Join consequentialists. (Abandon the view that there is a fundamental obligation of not harming in addition to the obligation to promote the good).

19. The “Trolley” Example • Frank is the only passenger on a trolley whose driver has just shouted that the trolley’s brakes have failed, and who then died of the shock. On the track ahead of him are five people; the banks are so steep that they will not be able to get off the track in time. The track has a spur leading off to the right, and Frank can turn the trolley onto it. Unfortunately there is one person on the right-hand track. Frank can turn the trolley, killing the one; or he can refrain from turning the trolley, letting the five die.

20. The Trolley “Example” ☻ ☺☺☺☺☺ Frank ☺

21. PDE and the Trolley Example • In this case, in changing the course of the trolley, Frank does not intend the harm or death of any person. Thus, the action will be permissible (only) as far as the proportionality condition is satisfied: the bad consequence – the death of one person – is not out of proportion to the good consequence – the survival of five people. • Then, PDE might vindicate ordinary people’s view. • On this point, PDE might do better than the doing/allowing view. Since changing the course of the trolley does harm to one person, the doing/allowing view will take it to be wrong.

22. The Application of PDE:Bomber Examples • Both Bomber T and Bomber S have the goal of weakening a really evil but super-powerful enemy. Each intends to pursue this goal by dropping bombs. • Bomber T’s plan is to bomb the school in the enemy’s territory, thereby killing children of the enemy and terrorizing the enemy’s population. • Bomber S’s plan is to bomb the enemy’s munitions plant, thereby undermining the enemy’s war effort. However, he also knows that next to the munitions plant is a school, and that when he bombs the plant, he will also destroy the school, killing the children inside.

23. PDE: Bomber Examples • Suppose that both bombings have the good effect, i.e., weakening the really evil but super-powerful enemy, which in proportion to the harm of killing children etc. • If so, PDE apparently tells that Bomber T’s action is wrong while Bomber S’s action is permissible. • Why? Bomber T intends to kill the children while (apparently) Bomber S merely foresees his bombing will kill the children: for Bomber S, killing children is a merely foreseen side-effect. (Chart 1) • What do you think about this judgment?

24. Chart 1: Bomber Examples Means: Killing the children in school and terrorizing the enemy’s population End: Weakening the evil but super-powerful enemy • Bomber T Action: Bombing • Bomber S Action: Bombing Impermissible! Means: Destroying the enemy’s munitions plant End: Weakening the evil but super-powerful enemy Permissible! Expected Side Effect: Killing the children in school