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The Double Effect
It is permissible to do an act that will produce two moral effects, one good and the other bad, if all of the following conditions are fulfilled:
(1) if the good effect and not the evil effect is directly intended;Verify the conditions in the following cases and answer the questions:
(2) if the act itself is good or at least indifferent;
(3) if the good effect is not produced by means of the evil effect; and
(4) if there is a proportionate reason for perniitting the foreseen evil effect to occur.
1. Joe and Bill on a raft in the Bering Sea have only enough food and clothing to keep one man alive till help comes. Joe in order that Bill may live jumps into the sea and starts swimming, but he drowns before he swims very far. Did Joe commit suicide?
2. If in the same case instead of jumping into the sea Joe were to shoot himself to obtain the same effect, would he be guilty of suicide?
3. Lieutenant Brennan, navy pilot, in his plane full of high explosive bombs, dives into an enemy aircraft carrier and destroys it. Did Lieutenant Brennan commit suicide? [Updated: Assume that his plane is so damaged that it will not make it back to base but will crash into the sea]
4. Ernst, an innocent man in a concentration camp, sentenced to be tortured to death, is offered his life and the lives of his wife and family if he will shoot some of his fellow prisoners. He knows that many of his fellow prisoners are innocent of any crime, but they will be killed whether he shoots them or not. They are willing to have Ernst shoot them for the good of himself and his family. May Ernst shoot them?
5. Captain Alvarez, in time of war, drops a blockbuster bomb on a large ammunition dump that is located alongside of a maternity hospital. Is Alvarez guilty of murder if he freely volunteered to perform this mission?
6. Kay, trapped by fire on the top story of a high building, jumps out the window to avoid a terrible death by fire. She realizes that such a jump will be fatal. Is she guilty of suicide?
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Answers next Monday...
Adapted from The Queen's Work Magazine, January 1947
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