The Structure of the Thesis. The history of DER is interesting, and the subject of Chapter 2. In it I consider whether some early case based discussion found in the writings of St Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx are good examples of DER. DER is usually traced back to St Xxxxxx’ account of the permissibility of killing in self- defence, and I argue that his writing contains the ingredients for DER, but deploys them in a somewhat inchoate way. Recent discussion of Xxxxxxxxx on ‘Mixed Action’ is also of interest, due to the diversity in how Xxxxxxxxx has been interpreted. Xxxxxxx takes Xxxxxxxxx to provide an early example of DER, whereas XxXxxxx finds the cases under discussion to provide convincing counter-examples to DER. I argue that Xxxxxxxxx does not deploy (an early version of) DER, but that his consideration of mixed action is compatible with DER. Finally, I argue that DER can be traced further back than St Xxxxxx, to St Augustine, and develop the thought that Xxxxxxxxx’x theodicy (if slightly exotic in philosophical terms) is an early example of DER. DER is paradigmatically a non-consequentialist kind of reasoning, because central to DER are the ideas that bringing about certain bad effects intentionally would be impermissible even if overall consequences are beneficial, and that bad outcomes may not be used as a means to further good ends. It is not the case that all non-consequentialists embrace DER. Indeed, some of the most prominent critics of DER, including X.X.Xxxxxxx and X.X.Xxxxxxx, are deontologists. For many non-consequentialists this kind of principle is intuitively very plausible, however, not only does it face challenges concerning its coherence, clarity and usefulness, but DER also raises a number of deep and significant puzzles in normative ethics, the philosophy of action and moral psychology. One of the wider questions, or sets of puzzles raised by DER concerns the moral significance of intention. Intention is important because it is a special kind of attitude that is connected to our appraisal of actions and agents. From our earliest stages of development we are used to using the fact that something happened ‘by accident’ or ‘involuntarily’ as an excuse when we are blamed. These cases are examples of not having an intention and where this is exculpatory. They are not, however, examples of what Xxxxxxxx might call ‘human actions’, because the effect occurs involuntarily. The question for DER is whether the absence of an intention in relation to a bad outcome can be...
