What is the Doctrine of Double Effect? (Philosophical Definition) 

Then he was mistaken, because those cases do not instantiate the doctrine of double effect (DDE), but the doctrine of doing and allowing (DDA).

im studying the doctrine of double effect because its being taught as applicable within the euthanasia debate at my university for my bachelor of philosophy. If universities are teaching it, i think its safe to say its probably applicable@@jjt1881

But the philosophy isn't necessarily about the law. It's more about ethics than law. And, objectively speaking, is the man in the trolley's life less valuable than the fat man's? If so, is it not then equally unethical to throw himself in front of the trolley? His intentions were still clear after all: to kill someone.

John Karavitis Are you saying all foreseen consequences are intended?

All actions have an end, but the end in mind in the track-switching dilemma is to avoid the 5 people. The fact that 1 person dies is accidental to the action, because it is not contained within its end. One way to tell whether a consequence is part of the end of one of your actions is to see whether you would be disappointed should that end not occur. Suppose that you're driving somewhere, and you're sure that your going to have to get through miles of gridlock in order to get there. You get onto the road, and your car breaks down. You'll probably be pretty disappointed, and more than a little frustrated. But suppose that instead of this, you get onto the road only to discover the traffic is pretty reasonable. In this case you'll almost certainly be relieved, unless you're driving somewhere you absolutely loathe. In your mind, the end of getting to your destination, the means of driving there, and the traffic you'd have to go through along the way are all bound up, but nonetheless, the latter is incidental. The same is true in the track-switching dilemma. If you hit the switch to go toward the 1 person, and that person saw you coming and jumped off the track, you would be immensely relived. Far more, I think, than in the previous example. Whereas in the loop trolley problem later in the video, if the fat man jumped out of the way, you would be disappointed, since that one person jumping out of the way defeats the purpose of your changing the tracks (i.e. saving the other 5 people).

You just answered your own question.

Maybe not all foreseen consequences, but at least those whose outcome is certain.

Feel the same. The cheapest good sounding microphone would be a Rode Nt-Usb. Just look at some RU-vid vids to see how great it sounds

Nothing wrong with the audio. Ever consider taking the shit out of your ears?

Says the tool whose own RU-vid channel == SHIT. Good luck!

"Clearly the death of the fat man is not the cause of saving the others." That would be similar to saying that "clearly, it is not me pulling the trigger that kills you, it is the bullets that do the job". If by blocking the track you are using the body of a live human being to stop it, you are (other things being equal) killing him, period. Not to accept this would imply that the other five people are not going to be "causally" killed by the train either, but only that their bodies are going to stop it. That does not make any sense.

@@jjt1881 I think so

Thanks! Glad you enjoy.

That depends on who you ask. For the utilitarian, the answer is going to be no (unless you know that switching the track will actually cause more harm than good, say the five men were going to die from a rockslide anyway, but the one person could have lived). The deontologist will offer you other ways to get out of it, such as claiming that killing is morally wrong even if it is to save the lives of others.

7 months late, but they 5 people will die because the loop goes back onto the track with 5 people. You can see the picture at 3:45, the 5 people are still at the end of the loop (or past the loop and on the main track). If they fat person wasn't there to begin with or got off the track, the five people are dead anyways. So this video is explaining either let the trolley hit 5 people, or use the fat man as a means to stop the train saving five people but killing one in the process.

I think that deontic ethical theories in general qualify as rules for when to follow intuition and when to go against it. There are plenty of times when our intuition tells us it's better to break a rule, but still forbids it. Likewise, there are times when it seems wrong to break a rule, even when the effect would be good, and yet still promotes it. It seems to me that most, if not all deontic theories latch on to some particular moral intuition (e.g. it's better to please more people, God knows what's right), and blow it up until it becomes the whole of morality. If there's any benefit to virtue ethics, it's that it tells us not to do this, but also doesn't amount to moral sense theory.

I don't know that a society could function where people run each other over with trolley cars, either.

dodopod But it seems to me that people are being run over by a trolley in a pretty similar way whether it's five or one. I can't really see any societal problem with saying "in the event of an accident, we will divert trollies to hit as few civilians as possible." But having a society in which people purposely push each other to their deaths doesn't seem like one that could ever have trust, which would be destructive to society itself.

Fair enough. Though I don't think situations like this, where killing one person will save several others, come up enough in everyday life for it to actually have much of an effect on society.

How about this. You walk into a hospital. There are five people that need organ transplants or they will soon die, and if we took your organs, we could save their lives. Would it be moral for a doctor to kill you and take your organs, trading one life for five? This is essentially a constant situation in everyday life. We almost always have the opportunity to kill one person to save multiple other lives. People who need organ transplants die every day. Would it be moral to kill others to save their lives? I think not. It would be terrible for society if we went around murdering each other on a regular basis. Nobody would be comfortable going to hospitals, for one.

...To acquire the "GOOD EFFECT," the agent who "CAUSES" it must have prior information of its surroundings, which is not always possible, and we must hope that there are no unknown variables that may seriously affect it.

munstrumridcully Do the whole two face solution to the problem. Flip a coin. Whatever happens you can blame the coin toss and not yourself

munstrumridcully Its a way of removing choice

DManCAWMaster but do I have to hideously scar half my body first? 😉

munstrumridcully It's encouraged but not required

Why not?

@@mustangguy8981 This illustration is simply about an unfortunate circumstance. If the death of a human being is seemingly imminent either way and there is no intent to kill (which this presupposes) there is no moral argument. The moral argument arises because every human being is created in the image of God. It is the responsibility of every human being, therefore, to honour the sacredness of life for all people. Human identity is primarily spiritual by nature. Physical identity is secondary. Morality, therefore, is not defined by subjective reasoning but rather transcendent above subjective reasoning. The moral question only arises when another human being has been dishonoured. In this illustration, however unfortunate, does not dishonour the sacredness of life of another. Come to think of it, referring to the single man as "the fat guy" may be a moral question in of itself. Lol!