Actions and Intentions Sample Clauses

Actions and Intentions. As we have seen, DER is not a simple philosophical conundrum, nor solution to a clearly articulated problem. It makes normative claims based on a distinction in the moral psychology of action (intend/foresee), on the normative relevance of instrumental rationality, and on the importance of considering outcomes holistically (proportionality). It should not be surprising that debates in the philosophy of action have an impact on normative theory, though the links between them are not often clearly spelled out, nor are implications drawn out for Double Effect Reasoning48. Double effect is in a particularly good position to be affected by disputes over action as it stands between the fields of action, normative ethics, meta-ethics and moral psychology. In what follows, I draw some implications for double effect of the differences between Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxx’x account of action and intention49, and consider some fundamental differences in different accounts of action. The chapter below is not an attempt to try to derive a contribution to normative theory from the understanding of actions50, but to highlight how different understandings of action can have a particularly important effect on how DER is understood. If, for example, we think of an action as an event caused in the right kind of way by a mental state, then this may lend support to or tend to favour an event based interpretation of normative aspects of double effect reasoning, over and against other theories of action that involve closer connections between the content of mental states and the nature of action. Xxxxx Xxxxx has for example contrasted ‘event’ and ‘agent’ interpretations of the means condition51. She argues that the literature on DER has suffered from confusion over how the means condition ought to be understood, and this 48 Though there are some rare exceptions see x.x. Xxxxxx X. Sulmasy, “‘Reinventing’ the Rule of Double Effect,” in The Oxford Handbook of Bioethics, 2009, 1–41, doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199562411.003.0006. 49 See Anscombe Intention, Xxxxxxxx “Actions Reasons and Causes” and “Agency”, both in Essays on Actions and Events. Xxxxxxx “Actions in their Circumstances” 50 See Xxxxxxxx, the Constitution of Agency and Enoch, Agency, Schmagency. 51 Xxxxx, X. “The Doctrine of Double Effect: Problems of Interpretation” in Xxxxxxxx The Principle of Double Effect p129. seems right, but more on this later (Ch5). My approach in this chapter is not to suggest that action theory favours ...