The author provides clarifying remarks on the doctrine of double effect and examines criticisms of the doctrine. Specifically, the author discusses the distinction between intended versus foreseen effects, known as the "closeness problem." While double effect aims to distinguish morally permissible from impermissible actions based on intention, critics argue the distinction is difficult to apply in practice due to close relationships between aspects of action plans. The author also summarizes Thomson's criticism that double effect improperly focuses on the action rather than the character of the agent performing it.
Essay On Road Accident | Road Accident Essay for Students and Children .... Car Crash Essays. Essay Describing A Car Accident - Car Accident Essay. A terrible car accident essay. A Railway Accident Essay | Essay on A Railway Accident for Students and .... (An Accident) Short Essay in Simple English. Car accident essay - thejudgereport674.web.fc2.com. Car Accident Victim Impact Statement Essay Example | StudyHippo.com. Buy a narrative essay about an accident: Buy A Narrative Essay About An .... How a car accident has changed my life Essay Example | Topics and Well .... The Crash - GCSE English - Marked by Teachers.com. English essay about an accident - writefiction581.web.fc2.com. English essay about an accident. Buy a narrative essay about an accident i saw. The worst accident I .... The risks of a car accident are much higher than an airplane crash .... An Accident I Saw Essay | Essay on An Accident I Saw for Students and ....
Essay On Road Accident | Road Accident Essay for Students and Children .... Car Crash Essays. Essay Describing A Car Accident - Car Accident Essay. A terrible car accident essay. A Railway Accident Essay | Essay on A Railway Accident for Students and .... (An Accident) Short Essay in Simple English. Car accident essay - thejudgereport674.web.fc2.com. Car Accident Victim Impact Statement Essay Example | StudyHippo.com. Buy a narrative essay about an accident: Buy A Narrative Essay About An .... How a car accident has changed my life Essay Example | Topics and Well .... The Crash - GCSE English - Marked by Teachers.com. English essay about an accident - writefiction581.web.fc2.com. English essay about an accident. Buy a narrative essay about an accident i saw. The worst accident I .... The risks of a car accident are much higher than an airplane crash .... An Accident I Saw Essay | Essay on An Accident I Saw for Students and ....
Discussion Message Board Week#1 1. How do the formal aspects o.docxduketjoy27252
Discussion Message Board Week#1
1. How do the formal aspects of your work environment affect you? What informal aspects of your work environment are important? (200 words)
2. Suppose you have an employee whose lack of commitment is affecting others in the work group. How would you go about persuading the person to change this attitude? In your response be sure to consider issues of individual differences. (200 words)
Discussion Message Board Week #2
1. Read the article On the Folly of Rewarding A, while hoping for B. Please react to the article and its implications using the concepts/theories that are discussed in the text. Feel free to include personal 'follys' in your response which you have seen in the field of human services where people are not always rewarded for the desired behaviors. (210 words)
2. Which learning approach do you find most appropriate for use in a human service organization? What are some factors that play into your answer…be specific (200 words)
I Academy of Management Executive. 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1
AN ACADEMY CLASSIC
On the folly of rewarding A.
while hoping for B
Steven Kerr
Executive Overview This crticis, updated ior AME. needs no introduciionJ Even today, the original
article is still widely reprinted. Now part of the lexicon, it truly qualiUes as an
Academy of Management Classic. For almost twenty years, its title has
reminded executives and scholars alike—"it's the reward system, stupid!" We
hope you enjoy the update!
Editor
Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial
to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are
rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to
the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. The extent to which this occurs
of course will depend on the perceived attractiveness of the rewards offered, but
neither operant nor expectancy theorists would quarrel with the essence of this
notion.
Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in
that the types of behavior rewarded are those which the rewarder is trying to
discourage, while the behavior desired is not being rewarded at all.
Fouled Up Systems
In Politics
Official goals are "purposely vague and general and do not indicate . . . the
host of decisions that must be made among alternative ways of achieving
official goals and the priority of multiple goals . . . "̂ They usually may be
relied on to offend absolutely no one, and in this sense can be considered high
acceptance, low quality goals. An example might be "All Americans are entitled
to health care." Operative goals are higher in quality but lower in acceptance,
since they specify where the money will come from, and what alternative goals
will be ignored.
The American citizenry supposedly wants its candidates for public office to set
forth operative goals, making their proposed programs clear, and specifying
sources and uses of funds. However, s.
Discussion Message Board Week#1 1. How do the formal aspects o.docxedgar6wallace88877
Discussion Message Board Week#1
1. How do the formal aspects of your work environment affect you? What informal aspects of your work environment are important? (200 words)
2. Suppose you have an employee whose lack of commitment is affecting others in the work group. How would you go about persuading the person to change this attitude? In your response be sure to consider issues of individual differences. (200 words)
Discussion Message Board Week #2
1. Read the article On the Folly of Rewarding A, while hoping for B. Please react to the article and its implications using the concepts/theories that are discussed in the text. Feel free to include personal 'follys' in your response which you have seen in the field of human services where people are not always rewarded for the desired behaviors. (210 words)
2. Which learning approach do you find most appropriate for use in a human service organization? What are some factors that play into your answer…be specific (200 words)
I Academy of Management Executive. 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1
AN ACADEMY CLASSIC
On the folly of rewarding A.
while hoping for B
Steven Kerr
Executive Overview This crticis, updated ior AME. needs no introduciionJ Even today, the original
article is still widely reprinted. Now part of the lexicon, it truly qualiUes as an
Academy of Management Classic. For almost twenty years, its title has
reminded executives and scholars alike—"it's the reward system, stupid!" We
hope you enjoy the update!
Editor
Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial
to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are
rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to
the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. The extent to which this occurs
of course will depend on the perceived attractiveness of the rewards offered, but
neither operant nor expectancy theorists would quarrel with the essence of this
notion.
Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in
that the types of behavior rewarded are those which the rewarder is trying to
discourage, while the behavior desired is not being rewarded at all.
Fouled Up Systems
In Politics
Official goals are "purposely vague and general and do not indicate . . . the
host of decisions that must be made among alternative ways of achieving
official goals and the priority of multiple goals . . . "̂ They usually may be
relied on to offend absolutely no one, and in this sense can be considered high
acceptance, low quality goals. An example might be "All Americans are entitled
to health care." Operative goals are higher in quality but lower in acceptance,
since they specify where the money will come from, and what alternative goals
will be ignored.
The American citizenry supposedly wants its candidates for public office to set
forth operative goals, making their proposed programs clear, and specifying
sources and uses of funds. However, s.
I Academy of Management Executive. 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1AN ACA.docxwilcockiris
I Academy of Management Executive. 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1
AN ACADEMY CLASSIC
On the folly of rewarding A.
while hoping for B
Steven Kerr
Executive Overview This crticis, updated ior AME. needs no introduciionJ Even today, the original
article is still widely reprinted. Now part of the lexicon, it truly qualiUes as an
Academy of Management Classic. For almost twenty years, its title has
reminded executives and scholars alike—"it's the reward system, stupid!" We
hope you enjoy the update!
Editor
Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial
to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are
rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to
the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. The extent to which this occurs
of course will depend on the perceived attractiveness of the rewards offered, but
neither operant nor expectancy theorists would quarrel with the essence of this
notion.
Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in
that the types of behavior rewarded are those which the rewarder is trying to
discourage, while the behavior desired is not being rewarded at all.
Fouled Up Systems
In Politics
Official goals are "purposely vague and general and do not indicate . . . the
host of decisions that must be made among alternative ways of achieving
official goals and the priority of multiple goals . . . "̂ They usually may be
relied on to offend absolutely no one, and in this sense can be considered high
acceptance, low quality goals. An example might be "All Americans are entitled
to health care." Operative goals are higher in quality but lower in acceptance,
since they specify where the money will come from, and what alternative goals
will be ignored.
The American citizenry supposedly wants its candidates for public office to set
forth operative goals, making their proposed programs clear, and specifying
sources and uses of funds. However, since operative goals are lower in
acceptance, and since aspirants to public office need acceptance (from at least
50.1 percent of the people), most politicians prefer to speak only of official
goals, at least until after the election. They of course would agree to speak at
the operative level if "punished" for not doing so. The electorate could do this
by refusing to support candidates who do not speak at the operative level.
Instead, however, the American voter typically punishes (withholds support
from) candidates who frankly discuss where the money will come from, rewards
Academy of Management Executive
politicians who speak only of official goals, but hopes that candidates (despite
the reward system) will discuss the issues operatively.
/n War
If some oversimplification may be permitted, let it be assumed that the primary
goal of the organization (Pentagon, Luftwaffe, or whatever) is to win. Let it be
assumed further that the primary goal of most individuals on the fro.
Nurture Vs Nature Essay. What is nature versus nurture argument essay. Natur...Carolyn Wagner
Nature Vs Nurture Essay: A Guide And Introduction | Toatal Assignment Help. Nature vs nurture Argumentative Essay - PHDessay.com. The nature versus nurture debate - Free comparison essay example .... Nature vs Nurture Essay | Essay on Nature vs Nurture for Students and .... Nature vs nurture essay help, Nature vs Nurture Essay.
Berkeley Application Essay. 005 Uc Essayss Best Personal Statement Samples Be...Susan Neal
Reading my UC Berkeley Accepted Essays + Tips! | How I Got Into UC Berkeley | College Application. 006 Essay Example Berkeley Application Uc Transfer Examples M ~ Thatsnotus. 008 Sample Of Uc Personal Statement Admission Essay ~ Thatsnotus. 2. essay sample univ berkeley. Statement Of Purpose Essay Example – Telegraph. Template for University of California, Berkeley Thesis/Dissertation .... 021 Usc Essay Prompt Example Sample Transfer Essays Uc Berkeley Prompts .... 2017 MBA Application: UC Berkeley Haas | Mba, Medical university .... 022 Uc Berkeley Essay Goal Blockety Co Prompts Yudof L Mba Questions .... Would you like to write an impressive Berkeley Statement of Purpose of .... College Essay Format | College essay examples, Essay writing examples .... 010 Essay Example Custom Admissions Computer Forensics Homework Help .... College Essay Examples Common App : The Common App Essay Example for .... Get Uc Application Essay Examples PNG - Exam. Is UC Berkeley on the Common Application? Why? - Quora. UC Berkeley Admissions & UC Berkeley requirements- Latest Info. 2022 Ultimate Guide: 20 UC Essay Examples - College Application Essays .... This is from UC Berkeley Admissions, but still contains some good tips ....
North American Philosophical Publications Prejudice i.docxhallettfaustina
North American Philosophical Publications
Prejudice in Jest: When Racial and Gender Humor Harms
Author(s): David Benatar
Source: Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Apr., 1999), pp. 191-203
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical
Publications
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Public Affairs Quarterly
Volume 13, Number 2, April 1999
PREJUDICE IN JEST: WHEN RACIAL AND
GENDER HUMOR HARMS
David Benatar
central questions in the sparse literature on the ethics of humor
are: 1) What makes a piece of humor racist or sexist? 2) Are jokes
that embody negative racial and gender stereotypes necessarily racist
and sexist? Because these issues have tended to be discussed separately
it has not been noted that some answers to the first question render the
second question moot. My answer to the first question does not have this
effect. It will draw on an account of humor ethics that I provide and
defend against rival views of racist (and sexist) humor. I shall then
proceed to answering the second question.
An Account of Humor Ethics
How can humor be immoral? Briefly, the answer is that it is immoral
where it is intended to harm people or where there are good grounds for
expecting it to harm people, and where the harm in question is wrong-
fully inflicted. Following Joel Feinberg, I understand harm in terms of
negative effects on people's interests. However, my understanding of
harm is, in two ways, broader than the one for which he opts in his work
about the moral limits of the criminal law.1 Firstly, because in the cur-
rent context I have a more expansive interpretation of what interests
are, my understanding of harm includes what he calls hurts, offenses
and other disliked states which are insufficiently severe to warrant be-
ing termed harms for his purposes. Because I am concerned with the
morality of humor rather than with the moral limits of legally restrict-
ing it, the inclusion of less severe though nonetheless disliked states is
more appropriate. Secondly, for Professor Feinberg, a harm is some-
thing that is wrongfully inflicted. That definition is th.
Cause And Effect Of Global Warming Essay.pdfKristen Marie
≫ Effects and Causes of Global Warming and Climate Change Free Essay .... Discuss the causes of Global Warming - GCSE Geography - Marked by .... Explain the causes, effects and possible solutions to the problem of .... Essay On The Cause And Effect Of Global Warming With Some Solutions To .... Persuasive Essay Sample: Global Warming | HandMadeWriting Blog. Discuss what is global warming. And the effects that global warming .... Write A Short Essay On Global Warming - Global Warming Argument Essay. An Essay Upon Global Warming - GCSE Geography - Marked by Teachers.com. Global Warming and its Impact: Mention both the global effects and the .... Causes, Preventions and Signs of Global Warming - GCSE Geography .... What impacts has global warming had upon our planet? Global warming .... Global warming essays - College Homework Help and Online Tutoring.. Effects of Global Warming - Bing images. Global Warming - GCSE Science - Marked by Teachers.com. Global Warming: Causes, Effects, and Solutions Free Essay Example. The Impact of Global Warming: An Argumentative Essay Example. Global Warming: Causes and Effects Free Essay Example. Cause and effect global warming essay : Cause and effect essay on .... Essay on Global Warming: Causes, Effects, Impact and Prevention of .... Accueil. The Dukes Lab at UMass Boston - BACE Exhibit. Causes and Effects of Global Warming Essay | Essay on Causes and .... Causes Of Global Warming Essay | Essay on Causes Of Global Warming for .... Essay on Causes and Effects of Global Warming for all Class in 100 to .... Reflective essay: Write a paragraph about the cause and effect of .... Write My Essay : 100% Original Content - essay effects of global ....
Lesson Eight Moral Development and Moral IntensityLesson Seve.docxsmile790243
Lesson Eight: Moral Development and Moral Intensity
Lesson Seven discussed the different codifications of moral precepts over the course of human history which have attempted to simplify moral prescriptions. Lesson Eight will introduce the various stages of moral development within individuals, as well as the way moral intensity is rationalized on a case-by-case basis.
Moral Development
As we have discussed in previous lessons, ethics rely on morality and a reasoned analysis of the factors that affect human well-being (Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977). However, at this juncture it is important to note that not all individuals are capable of the same level of moral reasoning. Some of the differences in reasoning ability are attributable to age; the more mature that one is, the more likely they are to reach the higher levels of moral development. However, adulthood is not a guarantee that an individual will achieve the most sophisticated levels of moral reasoning. Some will never get there, and this is a significant obstacle to any hope of universally accepted objective morality.
1. Preconventional Reasoning: The preconventional level of moral reasoning is the most primitive. At the preconventional level, choices are assessed based only on personal consequences. In other words, the actor makes choices that render rewards, and refrains from choices that render punishments (Graham, 1995). Preconventional reasoning is as much as non-human animal reasoning typically allows. Granted, it is not uncommon for some mammals to act self-sacrificially to preserve their offspring, and there have been reports of pets putting themselves in harm’s way to protect their human owners, but these are limited contexts. In almost every other situation, animals are driven first and foremost by self-preservation, and secondly, self-optimization. Preconventional reasoning is also the first strategy learned in the sequence of human development. Children typically think about their own consequences when deciding upon behavior. If doing chores is rewarded with an allowance, and coloring on the walls will result in grounding, children are likely to embrace the former and avoid the latter, all other things being equal. Although the vast majority of humans graduate from this level, it is important to note that many adults still regularly make choices that are based predominantly on preconventional reasoning. This is to say, selfish acts are frighteningly common.
2. Conventional Reasoning: The second level of moral reasoning is that of conventional reasoning. One step removed from pure selfishness, the conventional level of reasoning looks not simply to personal consequences (although this is still a factor), but also to social expectations in a societal context (Logsdon & Yuthas, 1997). Instances of conventional moral reasoning can be found almost anywhere one looks. For example, it is generally considered rude to cut other people in a line, so although one’s assessment of persona ...
DB #2 2nd STUDENT POSTIddrisu Ibrahim Deterrence Scaring OffeOllieShoresna
DB #2: 2nd STUDENT POST
Iddrisu Ibrahim
Deterrence Scaring Offenders Straight
Top of Form
Deterrence Theory: Pros, Cons, and Improvements
Deterrence theory assumes offenders are rational and that they calculate the risk of being caught, prosecuted, and sentenced before deciding to commit a crime. A
few of the pros and cons of deterrence theory are identified while highlighting additional value this theory can have at the national level in combatting counterterrorism.
Pros of a Pure Deterrence Theory Correctional Policy
As deterrence theory is defined today, several studies have shown that there are few advantages of control-oriented interventions that aim to deter offenders from
reoffending (Cullen & Jonson, 2017, p. 98). However, in general, punishment is a reasonable response to violations of social norms. Realizing its utilitarian purpose,
deterrence theory can achieve justice and restore social balance. Also, as a key correctional policy of deterrence theory, mandatory sentencing would remove discretion
and personal bias at the prosecutorial and judicial level (Cullen & Jonson, 2017, p. 17).
Cons of a Pure Deterrence Theory Correctional Policy
Deterrence theory does not explain extenuating circumstances or the motivation to commit crime which can be problematic. Individual differences, such as
personality and circumstances, inject variations in the consequences that people are aware of, accentuate, and are willing to accept (Cullen & Jonson, 2017, p. 78). Despite
the public’s lack of ability to identify punishment levels with any precision (Nixon & Barnes, 2019; Thomas et al., 2017), even when some are aware of laws and policies in
place, they still decide to commit a criminal act. For example, emigrants fleeing peril in their countries, fully aware of the dangers they are likely to encounter, still choose
to illegally cross the border between Mexico and the United States (Hiskey et al., 2018). Despite the strong political message including border enforcement, migrant
detention, and expedited deportation, the violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras has employed a powerful influence on refugees’ emigration calculus.
We should acknowledge God’s sovereignty with our set of circumstances. We should trust in the Lord when we are confronting our enemies and facing situations that
challenge our moral and religious beliefs, even those that are life-threatening (Christian Standard Bible, 1769/2017, 2 Chronicles 20:6-15).
Improvements to Deterrence Theory
Changes in the international security environment have altered the context for deterrence. At the national level, the fundamentals of deterrence theory should be
reexamined to better fit into today’s modern world that is faced with emerging forms of warfare including threats to American security posed by transnational terrorists,
military strategies and capabilities, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (Chilton & Weaver, 2009). Unle ...
A Current Event Essay 600 Words - PHDessay.com. How to Write a Current Events Essay/ Current Events Essay Guidelines. 025 Essay Example Current Event Events Standard Paragraph Outline .... 003 Current Event Essay Example Essays College Format Sample Free .... Current events essay topics. Persuasive Essay On Current Events Free .... Current event essay. Current Event Essay Sample - Denton Independent School District. Current Event Essay. Reflection essay: Current event paper outline. ️ Current events essay. Current events essay topic. 2019-01-25. Current Event Report - MR. WIRKUS MORSE HIGH SCHOOL. 2014 Current Events Essay Example Topics and Well Written Essays .... Current Event Essay Sample. Current Event Analysis: Paper Sample and Free Essay Example. Short essay on current events in india in 2021 Essay examples, Essay .... Current events essay. The Government Shutdown Essay. 2019-03-02. Current Event Essay Template and Rubric by Literature Lifesavers. Current event summary Essay Example Topics and Well Written Essays .... What is a current event article. 2022 Current Events. 2022-10-21. 012 Essay Example Current Event On Events Where Can I Write My Now .... Sample Current Events Report. Current Events Essay.pdf DocDroid. Current event Paper format New Write My Paper Critique Essay Sample .... Current Event Essay: A Guide, Tips, Examples, and Topic Ideas. Current event paper Assignment Example Topics and Well Written Essays ... Current Events Essay Current Events Essay
Discussion Message Board Week#1 1. How do the formal aspects o.docxduketjoy27252
Discussion Message Board Week#1
1. How do the formal aspects of your work environment affect you? What informal aspects of your work environment are important? (200 words)
2. Suppose you have an employee whose lack of commitment is affecting others in the work group. How would you go about persuading the person to change this attitude? In your response be sure to consider issues of individual differences. (200 words)
Discussion Message Board Week #2
1. Read the article On the Folly of Rewarding A, while hoping for B. Please react to the article and its implications using the concepts/theories that are discussed in the text. Feel free to include personal 'follys' in your response which you have seen in the field of human services where people are not always rewarded for the desired behaviors. (210 words)
2. Which learning approach do you find most appropriate for use in a human service organization? What are some factors that play into your answer…be specific (200 words)
I Academy of Management Executive. 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1
AN ACADEMY CLASSIC
On the folly of rewarding A.
while hoping for B
Steven Kerr
Executive Overview This crticis, updated ior AME. needs no introduciionJ Even today, the original
article is still widely reprinted. Now part of the lexicon, it truly qualiUes as an
Academy of Management Classic. For almost twenty years, its title has
reminded executives and scholars alike—"it's the reward system, stupid!" We
hope you enjoy the update!
Editor
Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial
to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are
rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to
the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. The extent to which this occurs
of course will depend on the perceived attractiveness of the rewards offered, but
neither operant nor expectancy theorists would quarrel with the essence of this
notion.
Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in
that the types of behavior rewarded are those which the rewarder is trying to
discourage, while the behavior desired is not being rewarded at all.
Fouled Up Systems
In Politics
Official goals are "purposely vague and general and do not indicate . . . the
host of decisions that must be made among alternative ways of achieving
official goals and the priority of multiple goals . . . "̂ They usually may be
relied on to offend absolutely no one, and in this sense can be considered high
acceptance, low quality goals. An example might be "All Americans are entitled
to health care." Operative goals are higher in quality but lower in acceptance,
since they specify where the money will come from, and what alternative goals
will be ignored.
The American citizenry supposedly wants its candidates for public office to set
forth operative goals, making their proposed programs clear, and specifying
sources and uses of funds. However, s.
Discussion Message Board Week#1 1. How do the formal aspects o.docxedgar6wallace88877
Discussion Message Board Week#1
1. How do the formal aspects of your work environment affect you? What informal aspects of your work environment are important? (200 words)
2. Suppose you have an employee whose lack of commitment is affecting others in the work group. How would you go about persuading the person to change this attitude? In your response be sure to consider issues of individual differences. (200 words)
Discussion Message Board Week #2
1. Read the article On the Folly of Rewarding A, while hoping for B. Please react to the article and its implications using the concepts/theories that are discussed in the text. Feel free to include personal 'follys' in your response which you have seen in the field of human services where people are not always rewarded for the desired behaviors. (210 words)
2. Which learning approach do you find most appropriate for use in a human service organization? What are some factors that play into your answer…be specific (200 words)
I Academy of Management Executive. 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1
AN ACADEMY CLASSIC
On the folly of rewarding A.
while hoping for B
Steven Kerr
Executive Overview This crticis, updated ior AME. needs no introduciionJ Even today, the original
article is still widely reprinted. Now part of the lexicon, it truly qualiUes as an
Academy of Management Classic. For almost twenty years, its title has
reminded executives and scholars alike—"it's the reward system, stupid!" We
hope you enjoy the update!
Editor
Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial
to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are
rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to
the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. The extent to which this occurs
of course will depend on the perceived attractiveness of the rewards offered, but
neither operant nor expectancy theorists would quarrel with the essence of this
notion.
Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in
that the types of behavior rewarded are those which the rewarder is trying to
discourage, while the behavior desired is not being rewarded at all.
Fouled Up Systems
In Politics
Official goals are "purposely vague and general and do not indicate . . . the
host of decisions that must be made among alternative ways of achieving
official goals and the priority of multiple goals . . . "̂ They usually may be
relied on to offend absolutely no one, and in this sense can be considered high
acceptance, low quality goals. An example might be "All Americans are entitled
to health care." Operative goals are higher in quality but lower in acceptance,
since they specify where the money will come from, and what alternative goals
will be ignored.
The American citizenry supposedly wants its candidates for public office to set
forth operative goals, making their proposed programs clear, and specifying
sources and uses of funds. However, s.
I Academy of Management Executive. 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1AN ACA.docxwilcockiris
I Academy of Management Executive. 1995 Vol. 9 No. 1
AN ACADEMY CLASSIC
On the folly of rewarding A.
while hoping for B
Steven Kerr
Executive Overview This crticis, updated ior AME. needs no introduciionJ Even today, the original
article is still widely reprinted. Now part of the lexicon, it truly qualiUes as an
Academy of Management Classic. For almost twenty years, its title has
reminded executives and scholars alike—"it's the reward system, stupid!" We
hope you enjoy the update!
Editor
Whether dealing with monkeys, rats, or human beings, it is hardly controversial
to state that most organisms seek information concerning what activities are
rewarded, and then seek to do (or at least pretend to do) those things, often to
the virtual exclusion of activities not rewarded. The extent to which this occurs
of course will depend on the perceived attractiveness of the rewards offered, but
neither operant nor expectancy theorists would quarrel with the essence of this
notion.
Nevertheless, numerous examples exist of reward systems that are fouled up in
that the types of behavior rewarded are those which the rewarder is trying to
discourage, while the behavior desired is not being rewarded at all.
Fouled Up Systems
In Politics
Official goals are "purposely vague and general and do not indicate . . . the
host of decisions that must be made among alternative ways of achieving
official goals and the priority of multiple goals . . . "̂ They usually may be
relied on to offend absolutely no one, and in this sense can be considered high
acceptance, low quality goals. An example might be "All Americans are entitled
to health care." Operative goals are higher in quality but lower in acceptance,
since they specify where the money will come from, and what alternative goals
will be ignored.
The American citizenry supposedly wants its candidates for public office to set
forth operative goals, making their proposed programs clear, and specifying
sources and uses of funds. However, since operative goals are lower in
acceptance, and since aspirants to public office need acceptance (from at least
50.1 percent of the people), most politicians prefer to speak only of official
goals, at least until after the election. They of course would agree to speak at
the operative level if "punished" for not doing so. The electorate could do this
by refusing to support candidates who do not speak at the operative level.
Instead, however, the American voter typically punishes (withholds support
from) candidates who frankly discuss where the money will come from, rewards
Academy of Management Executive
politicians who speak only of official goals, but hopes that candidates (despite
the reward system) will discuss the issues operatively.
/n War
If some oversimplification may be permitted, let it be assumed that the primary
goal of the organization (Pentagon, Luftwaffe, or whatever) is to win. Let it be
assumed further that the primary goal of most individuals on the fro.
Nurture Vs Nature Essay. What is nature versus nurture argument essay. Natur...Carolyn Wagner
Nature Vs Nurture Essay: A Guide And Introduction | Toatal Assignment Help. Nature vs nurture Argumentative Essay - PHDessay.com. The nature versus nurture debate - Free comparison essay example .... Nature vs Nurture Essay | Essay on Nature vs Nurture for Students and .... Nature vs nurture essay help, Nature vs Nurture Essay.
Berkeley Application Essay. 005 Uc Essayss Best Personal Statement Samples Be...Susan Neal
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North American Philosophical Publications Prejudice i.docxhallettfaustina
North American Philosophical Publications
Prejudice in Jest: When Racial and Gender Humor Harms
Author(s): David Benatar
Source: Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Apr., 1999), pp. 191-203
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical
Publications
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Public Affairs Quarterly
Volume 13, Number 2, April 1999
PREJUDICE IN JEST: WHEN RACIAL AND
GENDER HUMOR HARMS
David Benatar
central questions in the sparse literature on the ethics of humor
are: 1) What makes a piece of humor racist or sexist? 2) Are jokes
that embody negative racial and gender stereotypes necessarily racist
and sexist? Because these issues have tended to be discussed separately
it has not been noted that some answers to the first question render the
second question moot. My answer to the first question does not have this
effect. It will draw on an account of humor ethics that I provide and
defend against rival views of racist (and sexist) humor. I shall then
proceed to answering the second question.
An Account of Humor Ethics
How can humor be immoral? Briefly, the answer is that it is immoral
where it is intended to harm people or where there are good grounds for
expecting it to harm people, and where the harm in question is wrong-
fully inflicted. Following Joel Feinberg, I understand harm in terms of
negative effects on people's interests. However, my understanding of
harm is, in two ways, broader than the one for which he opts in his work
about the moral limits of the criminal law.1 Firstly, because in the cur-
rent context I have a more expansive interpretation of what interests
are, my understanding of harm includes what he calls hurts, offenses
and other disliked states which are insufficiently severe to warrant be-
ing termed harms for his purposes. Because I am concerned with the
morality of humor rather than with the moral limits of legally restrict-
ing it, the inclusion of less severe though nonetheless disliked states is
more appropriate. Secondly, for Professor Feinberg, a harm is some-
thing that is wrongfully inflicted. That definition is th.
Cause And Effect Of Global Warming Essay.pdfKristen Marie
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Lesson Eight Moral Development and Moral IntensityLesson Seve.docxsmile790243
Lesson Eight: Moral Development and Moral Intensity
Lesson Seven discussed the different codifications of moral precepts over the course of human history which have attempted to simplify moral prescriptions. Lesson Eight will introduce the various stages of moral development within individuals, as well as the way moral intensity is rationalized on a case-by-case basis.
Moral Development
As we have discussed in previous lessons, ethics rely on morality and a reasoned analysis of the factors that affect human well-being (Kohlberg & Hersh, 1977). However, at this juncture it is important to note that not all individuals are capable of the same level of moral reasoning. Some of the differences in reasoning ability are attributable to age; the more mature that one is, the more likely they are to reach the higher levels of moral development. However, adulthood is not a guarantee that an individual will achieve the most sophisticated levels of moral reasoning. Some will never get there, and this is a significant obstacle to any hope of universally accepted objective morality.
1. Preconventional Reasoning: The preconventional level of moral reasoning is the most primitive. At the preconventional level, choices are assessed based only on personal consequences. In other words, the actor makes choices that render rewards, and refrains from choices that render punishments (Graham, 1995). Preconventional reasoning is as much as non-human animal reasoning typically allows. Granted, it is not uncommon for some mammals to act self-sacrificially to preserve their offspring, and there have been reports of pets putting themselves in harm’s way to protect their human owners, but these are limited contexts. In almost every other situation, animals are driven first and foremost by self-preservation, and secondly, self-optimization. Preconventional reasoning is also the first strategy learned in the sequence of human development. Children typically think about their own consequences when deciding upon behavior. If doing chores is rewarded with an allowance, and coloring on the walls will result in grounding, children are likely to embrace the former and avoid the latter, all other things being equal. Although the vast majority of humans graduate from this level, it is important to note that many adults still regularly make choices that are based predominantly on preconventional reasoning. This is to say, selfish acts are frighteningly common.
2. Conventional Reasoning: The second level of moral reasoning is that of conventional reasoning. One step removed from pure selfishness, the conventional level of reasoning looks not simply to personal consequences (although this is still a factor), but also to social expectations in a societal context (Logsdon & Yuthas, 1997). Instances of conventional moral reasoning can be found almost anywhere one looks. For example, it is generally considered rude to cut other people in a line, so although one’s assessment of persona ...
DB #2 2nd STUDENT POSTIddrisu Ibrahim Deterrence Scaring OffeOllieShoresna
DB #2: 2nd STUDENT POST
Iddrisu Ibrahim
Deterrence Scaring Offenders Straight
Top of Form
Deterrence Theory: Pros, Cons, and Improvements
Deterrence theory assumes offenders are rational and that they calculate the risk of being caught, prosecuted, and sentenced before deciding to commit a crime. A
few of the pros and cons of deterrence theory are identified while highlighting additional value this theory can have at the national level in combatting counterterrorism.
Pros of a Pure Deterrence Theory Correctional Policy
As deterrence theory is defined today, several studies have shown that there are few advantages of control-oriented interventions that aim to deter offenders from
reoffending (Cullen & Jonson, 2017, p. 98). However, in general, punishment is a reasonable response to violations of social norms. Realizing its utilitarian purpose,
deterrence theory can achieve justice and restore social balance. Also, as a key correctional policy of deterrence theory, mandatory sentencing would remove discretion
and personal bias at the prosecutorial and judicial level (Cullen & Jonson, 2017, p. 17).
Cons of a Pure Deterrence Theory Correctional Policy
Deterrence theory does not explain extenuating circumstances or the motivation to commit crime which can be problematic. Individual differences, such as
personality and circumstances, inject variations in the consequences that people are aware of, accentuate, and are willing to accept (Cullen & Jonson, 2017, p. 78). Despite
the public’s lack of ability to identify punishment levels with any precision (Nixon & Barnes, 2019; Thomas et al., 2017), even when some are aware of laws and policies in
place, they still decide to commit a criminal act. For example, emigrants fleeing peril in their countries, fully aware of the dangers they are likely to encounter, still choose
to illegally cross the border between Mexico and the United States (Hiskey et al., 2018). Despite the strong political message including border enforcement, migrant
detention, and expedited deportation, the violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras has employed a powerful influence on refugees’ emigration calculus.
We should acknowledge God’s sovereignty with our set of circumstances. We should trust in the Lord when we are confronting our enemies and facing situations that
challenge our moral and religious beliefs, even those that are life-threatening (Christian Standard Bible, 1769/2017, 2 Chronicles 20:6-15).
Improvements to Deterrence Theory
Changes in the international security environment have altered the context for deterrence. At the national level, the fundamentals of deterrence theory should be
reexamined to better fit into today’s modern world that is faced with emerging forms of warfare including threats to American security posed by transnational terrorists,
military strategies and capabilities, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (Chilton & Weaver, 2009). Unle ...
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2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly2
good end than it is to produce the same bad effect E as a foreseeable byproduct
of one’s endeavoring.2
Philosophers frequently appeal to DDE both to explain
the seeming worseness of one action (or set of actions) as opposed to another
with an equivalent outcome and to justify acting in such a way as to produce
a good outcome that is accompanied by a bad effect. A paradigmatic applica-
tion of DDE is to morally distinguish between two sorts of bombings during
the prosecution of war: in the first, strategic bombing (SB), a pilot bombs the
enemy’s munitions cache in order to gain military advantage while foreseeing
that nearby civilians will be harmed by the blast. In the second, terror bomb-
ing (TB), a pilot targets the civilians in order to demoralize the enemy. While
the same harm comes to the civilians in each bombing, TB seems worse than
SB at least partly in virtue of the fact that in TB the harm to the civilians was
intended as a means to victory whereas in SB the harm was not so intended.3
Note that DDE explains the apparent moral difference between the bombings,
not just the apparent moral difference between the characters of the respective
pilots. It is often the case that a terror bomber is thought of as a worse person
than a strategic bomber at least partly in virtue of his acting with the intention
to harm civilians, his adoption of a bad means; but this need not be so, and in
any case the evaluation of character is separate and distinct from the evaluation
of the two kinds of bombings. To reiterate, DDE states that terror bombing is
worse than strategic bombing because of the intention to harm expressed by the
act in terror bombing, an intention that is absent in strategic bombing.
It may strike the reader as odd that I have allowed that strategic bombing
can, in some instances, be performed so as to reflect more poorly on the character
of the pilot than a terror bombing performed by another pilot. But this is exactly
right: the strategic bomber, so designated in virtue of his intention to target a
military asset rather than civilians, may nonetheless regard the harm done to
civilians as a welcome foreseeable side effect of his action while the terror bomber
may be regretful that he is doing harm to civilians as part of his plan to encourage
enemy surrender. Which is just to say that what we can call sadistic bombing
cuts across the intended/foreseen (I/F) divide in various ways. In the instance of
a pair of pilots with the attitudes just described, the terror bomber exhibits better
character than does the strategic bomber. We can have sadistic strategic bombing
just as we can have regretful, remorseful, or reluctant terror bombing. I make
this point to emphasize one more time that the moral evaluation of character is
a different matter from the moral evaluation of action itself. (Of course, it does
2
Here’s a complete formulation of DDE: An action plan may be morally permissible when
the ultimate end(s) are good, the means are neutral at worst, the bad effect is not intended, and,
finally, the badness of the bad effect is in proper proportion to the goodness of the ultimate end(s).
3
This example is taken from Jonathan Bennett, “Morality and Consequences,” The Tanner
Lectures on Human Values II, ed. S. McMurrin (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1981).
3. The Doctrine of Double Effect: Intention and Evaluation 3
count against the terror bomber that he is doing something impermissible, this
despite his misgivings or regretful attitude towards the killings.)
II.
One of the most difficult problems connected with trying to apply DDE
has come to be known as the “closeness problem.”4
The problem is just that
of properly discriminating closely related parts of an action (or actions) from
one another so as to make distinctions between what is intended and what is
merely foreseen. Here is a classic case that introduces the closeness problem:
Roman Catholic teaching permits the performance of a hysterectomy on a
pregnant woman in cases where the uterus is malignantly cancerous and thus
poses a threat to the woman’s health and/or life. In permitting this operation,
which the doctor and patient know to a practical certainty will kill the fetus,
DDE is employed to distinguish the hysterectomy itself, which is the means to
destroying the cancer, from the bringing-about of death of the fetus within the
womb, which also obtains as a result of the procedure. This course of action is
morally distinguished from craniotomy, in which the head of an improperly
placed fetus is crushed so as once again to preserve the health and/or life of the
pregnant woman. This latter operation has traditionally been forbidden on the
grounds that the intended means, skull crushing, is felt to be “too close” to an
(intended) killing of the fetus, (intended) killing of an innocent human life—as
the Church regards the fetus—being absolutely forbidden.
In challenging the usefulness of DDE, Herbert Hart asked why we should
not want to say that in craniotomy the doctor executes the following plan: to
preserve the woman’s health and/or life by removing a dangerous blockage by
crushing the skull of the fetus, with the foreseen but unintended effect of causing
the death of the fetus.5
In response to this challenge, proponents of DDE have
either just appealed to a “felt closeness” between skull crushing and killing and
left the resolution of other hard cases to a sort of Potter Stewart test, or more
recently have tried to ground a feeling that the effects in question are too close
in subtle points of metaphysics, mereology and/or biology.6
With all this in mind, an earlier essay of mine recently was criticized for
trying to resolve the closeness problem for double effect along “Stewartesque”
4
Philippa Foot, “The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect,” in her
Virtues and Vices and Other Essays (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978).
5
H. L. A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility, 2 ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
6
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart is famous for having said of pornography that he
could not articulate its precise boundaries but that “he knew it when he saw it” (Jacobellis v. Ohio,
378 U.S. 184 [1964]).
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly4
lines.7
It’s worth taking a look at the criticism to see if some semblance of my
investigation can be salvaged, or at least to see if anything can be learned from
my missteps. We should set up some provisional fixed points against which to
evaluate my efforts. First off, we want to say that there does seem to be some-
thing morally worse about terror bombing than tactical or strategic bombing.
DDE proponents usually contend that the difference in evaluations of the acts
is grounded in the I/F distinction. Specifically, DDE proponents contend that
in terror bombing the pilot intends to kill a sizable number of non-combatants
whereas in strategic bombing the pilot has no such intent; rather, she merely
foresees to a practical certainty that this same sizable number of non-combatants
will be killed by an intended attack on a nearby military target.
Let’s also provisionally accept that the different roles that killing innocents
play in the practical reasoning of the two pilots TB and SB are responsible for
the difference in our moral evaluations of their respective bombings and that the
important factor is indeed the I/F distinction. I think standard SB versus TB is
the most persuasive case for the moral significance of DDE. Now Mark Johnston
and David Lewis have cleverly and independently constructed a variation on
SB versus TB in which the deaths of the non-combatants actually play no role
at all in inducing an enemy surrender, functioning neither as intended means
nor intended ends. In this case what induces the surrender is simply the bomb
blast itself, not the resultant deaths.8
The case is striking because it seems much
more like TB than SB, and it seems it should be regarded as an impermissible
strategy when by the letter of the law it is not. Lewis and Johnston, acting as
devil’s advocates, think this case puts a burden on DDE proponents because the
doctrine gets the case intuitively wrong.
In looking at the case, I tried to show how a rather inclusive conception of
what is intended in acting would produce the correct evaluation. More precisely,
7
Neil Francis Delaney, “Two Cheers for ‘Closeness’: Terror, Targeting and Double Effect,”
Philosophical Studies 137 (2008): 335–67; Dana Nelkin and Samuel Rickless, “So Close and Yet
So Far: Why Solutions to the Closeness Problem for the Doctrine of Double Effect Come Up
Short,” Nous 2013, doi: 10.1111/nous.12033.
8
The Johnston-Lewis case is as follows: Suppose the enemy command is in a war room such
that all they can see are video screens that alert them to the detonation of a megabomb over one
of their cities. What elicits a surrender then is not the sight of civilian slaughter at all; rather it is
simply detection of the blast. Johnston and Lewis suggest that in this case the pilot intends simply
the detonation of the megabomb. The civilian deaths are not part of his means at all; rather they
are an unintended but foreseen side effect. Neither Johnston nor Lewis published on the case: as
I noted in “Two Cheers for ‘Closeness,’” Johnston’s version of the case comes from his comments
on my dissertation. I have been reliably informed that this case very much resembles one proposed
by David Lewis. Presumably the reference is to a case attributed to Lewis and discussed by Warren
Quinn in his “Actions, Intentions and Consequences: The Doctrine of Double Effect,” (Philosophy
and Public Affairs 18 [1989]: 334–51).
5. The Doctrine of Double Effect: Intention and Evaluation 5
I suggested that in this case involving a felt “closeness” between bombing and
killing we might want to leave DDE undisturbed and argue that despite appear-
ances the deaths were intended as part of a “complex intention” (drop bomb
and kill civilians) as Wilfrid Sellars used the phrase.9
Since the deaths are in this
sense intended, routine application of DDE in fact deems the bombing morally
worse than (normal) strategic bombing. Now so far all I’ve done is some clever
accounting; the obvious question that the critics rightly raise is just: when do
we attribute to a pilot this damning complex intention? Or, which comes out to
the same thing, why aren’t the civilian deaths simply foreseen in Johnston-Lewis?
And Sellars has a ready answer: we attribute the complex intention involving
the anticipated killings because the anticipated killings are, or at least should be,
strong reasons against acting (bombing). In short, Sellars thinks that in a case
like Johnston-Lewis the pilot has chosen the killings along with the bombing
itself as parts of what Michael Bratman has called a “Package Deal,”10
and that,
when an outcome is chosen in this way, it is always taken to be intended at least
as part of a complex intention.
The problem with this “Package Deal” analysis is that it threatens to do
too much: precisely, it will make standard strategic bombings impermissible,
because the anticipated civilian deaths are always strong reasons against dropping
bombs on military targets. So, coming full circle, as I now see things I threw
the baby out with the bathwater by introducing Sellarsian intentions. Sellars’s
notions of holistic choice and complex intention formation can accommodate
Johnston-Lewis because of their inclusiveness, but they yield an intuitively jar-
ring evaluation of ordinary SB in virtue of this same feature. Notice that we
cashed out what is “intended” as including means, ends, and anticipated effects
that function as serious reasons against acting. And we see that that approach
threatens to swamp I/F altogether. We’ll need a more exclusive or narrow concept
of intention if DDE as regularly formulated is to be a useful ethical principle.
III.
I want to take this opportunity to make a recommendation (which will
likely not be heeded) concerning the recent flood of literature on the closeness
problem. I think we should interpret Foot as simply observing that there will be
cases of arguable closeness where double effect either needs a complementary
conception of intention as I formulated in my prior article or will simply require
some moral judgment, perhaps even moral expertise. I do not take Foot to be
9
Wilfrid Sellars, “Thought and Action,” in Freedom and Determinism, ed. Keith Lehrer (New
York: Random House 1966), 105–39. Cited and discussed by Michael Bratman in Intention, Plans
and Practical Reason (Stanford: CSLI Publications, 1999), at 192n9.
10
Bratman, Intention, Plans and Practical Reason, 143.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly6
at all suggesting that we sharpen our knives and come up with ever more pre-
cise formulations of double effect so as to generate explicitly and transparently
principled solutions to various puzzle cases that come up (e.g., human shields)
or can be devised. I titled my previous article “Two Cheers . . . ” for a very good
reason: namely, I intended to convey my sense that the closeness problem is
technically intractable and forces its defenders to rely on the Potter Stewart test,
sometimes even what Dershowitz calls “the giggle test.” This is a limitation of
DDE as a moral guide. I suppose DDE is limited in that it calls upon resources
some analytic philosophers find objectionable.Two, not three cheers. But in any
case, I repeat my recommendation that this peculiar cottage industry be aban-
doned and most importantly that Foot stop being credited with encouraging it.
This said, I can’t resist adding a new case to the literature on closeness.
Suppose a Navy SEAL is storming a darkened room where he knows a hostage
is being held such that the hostage’s body is right in front of a trip switch which
must be shot out. The trip switch is right behind the hostage’s heart, in fact.
The Navy SEAL, knowing all this, listens intently for the sound of the hostage’s
heartbeat in the dark, then fires his weapon so that the bullet goes through the
hostage’s heart and body and crucially neutralizes the trip switch. Now, the
question that arises is: Has the Navy SEAL intended to kill the hostage in firing
or is the death merely foreseen? Talk about closeness.11
IV.
As I noted at the outset, DDE has elicited a shrewd and substantial criticism
from J. J. Thomson.12
In essence her criticism is that DDE improperly locates
the target of any evaluative judgment in the action performed as opposed to in
the character of the agent who performs the action. Consider two plans, one in
which a pilot intends to bomb a mob of civilians so as to terrify and demoralize
the enemy, the other in which the pilot intends to bomb a military target while
merely foreseeing that the blast will kill the same mob of civilians. Let us further
suppose that in the first case the pilot merely foresees that his bomb will destroy
the military target as well. The upshots of the two pilots’ successfully executed
action plans are in one sense the same: a destroyed military target and identical
civilian casualties. Now it has been widely argued by advocates of DDE that the
11
Readers may recognize in this curious puzzle a reference to a notorious passage in Jona-
than Bennett’s The Act Itself in which he derides an unnamed philosopher’s contention that one
cannot intentionally shoot a bullet through a man’s heart without intending to kill that man. The
unnamed philosopher is Charles Fried, and the relevant passage is taken from Fried’s Right and
Wrong (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978).
12
Judith Jarvis Thomson, “Physician-Assisted Suicide: Two Moral Arguments,” Ethics 109
(1999): 497–518.
7. The Doctrine of Double Effect: Intention and Evaluation 7
first pilot’s mission is morally worse than that of the second, and that this is so
mainly because the first pilot has adopted a plan that includes killing civilians as
a means to the (good) end of winning the war, whereas the second pilot’s plan
involves no such use of the civilian deaths (and hence demonstrates no intention
to kill them). In these important respects DDE distinguishes the two cases from
the moral point of view. In light of the identical consequences, Thomson wonders
why we are disposed to condemn the first pilot’s mission while allowing that the
second pilot’s mission may be morally permissible. The missions produce the
same (immediate) outcomes (installation destroyed, civilians killed) save that
one terrorizes the enemy command and population while the other subverts
the enemy’s battle readiness. She suggests that the moral difference many if not
most of us sense is in our assessment that the first pilot’s character is worse than
that of the second pilot. Specifically, insofar as the first pilot intends to kill the
mob he is a bad man. Thomson flatly rejects any moral difference between the
missions themselves. It’s not simply a conclusion grounded in thoroughgoing
consequentialism. It is just that Thomson takes DDE to produce a condemna-
tion of the first pilot for an intention that he executes, and she doesn’t see how
this difference in mental state (alone, anyway) can rightly affect evaluation of
purposive behavior.
William Fitzpatrick has suggested that really there is no problem for DDE
presented by the Thomson objection that the token intention of the agent
doesn’t matter to the moral evaluation of the act itself.13
He suggests as a mat-
ter of clarification of the doctrine that, instead of demanding a specific token
intention from the particular agent, the act performed by the agent is morally
permissible (if not required) if there is an available pathway/by-chain through
which some (other) agent might have acted so as to produce the bad effect in
question as a mere side effect. So, say I crash the plane from a death wish while
some other fellow might have crashed the plane and killed the passengers with
the intention of putting an end to a terrorist attack (by crashing the plane into
a field in PA). On Fitzpatrick’s account, my action is permissible if there is a
way some other agent might have brought about the same net result without
the death wish, rather (say) having made a calculation that she will save a great
number of innocent lives and critical landmarks. This example seems to support
Fitzpatrick’s reconstruction of double effect. Now we might ask if this really is a
proper reconstruction of whatT. A. Cavanaugh has dubbed “double effect reason-
13
William Fitzpatrick, “Acts, Intentions and Moral Permissibility: In Defence of the Doctrine
of Double Effect,” Analysis 63 (2003): 317–21.
8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly8
ing” or DER,14
or if it rather introduces a different, albeit plausible, principle
for evaluating and justifying actions.
I’m inclined to argue that intentions do matter, pace Thomson. We might
say that the first pilot’s plan itself and his execution thereof is infused with his
nasty intention to kill civilians—to target and kill them with the intention of
demoralizing the enemy is a terroristic act. The second pilot’s act is a military
act that produces collateral damage. This is to say that sometimes the intention
with which an action (plan) is performed is part of our very understanding of
the act itself. Perhaps the crime of murder is the simplest case. Murder is what
Jonathan Bennett calls a thick concept, one in which the best description of the
action is bound up with intent. Without such intent, all we have is a knowing
bringing about of death. We do ordinarily condemn murders more so than we
do the latter sort of knowing killings. And it is true that those who commit
murder are ordinarily in virtue of this considered bad men and women; but the
order of explanation is either simply holistic (a bad act done by a bad agent)
or perhaps even flows from the bad act performed back to an assessment of the
agent’s character. In any case, DDE is best articulated and understood when
taken together with a theory of human action according to which what is done
depends on the manner in which behaviors are performed. The manner involves
the sense of purpose that underlies the performance, or put another way, precisely
the intention being executed.15
Another way we might proceed with our investigation as to why often TB
evokes different moral sentiments from SB would be to allow that both TB and
SB involve an intention to kill civilians, and that something else explains the
differing sentiments. I can see two ways of doing this. First, we may say that
in addition to involving an intention to kill civilians, TB (but not SB) involves
treating the civilians as means to the pilot’s (or Commander’s) ends of winning
the war, or maybe even better, using them. Sometimes philosophers talk as if
the intention in TB just is the treating of the civilians as means to an end; but
this may be a mistake. We can say that SB intends the complex (bomb military
target and kill civilians), but that SB is not using them in the pernicious way
that TB is so doing. If we say this, we have some choices in interpreting our
14
T. A. Cavanaugh, Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006).
15
When we think about an action from the point of view of a person on the receiving end,
say a nearby civilian in tactical/strategic bombing, the fact that there’s no intention to kill them
in the mind of the bomber certainly doesn’t seem to matter much. The thought that intentions
do matter to the moral assessment of the action comes from thinking about cases like insulting
gestures, where the action needs to be interpreted to have an effect from the point of view of the
target, and when considering the action from the point of view of an observer who can express
sentiments and/or propose punishment.
9. The Doctrine of Double Effect: Intention and Evaluation 9
greater disapprobation for TB. It might be the case that using civilians in this
way makes the action plan worse than that in SB, full stop, or it might be that
using the civilians reflects poorly on the character of the pilot, or it might be both.
Finally, we might try to distinguish TB from SB morally by noting that
oftentimes TB exhibits a callous disregard for innocent life whereas SB does not.
This may have something to do with the moral difference sometimes, but I sug-
gest we proceed with caution here. It’s crucial to note that, as suggested at the
start of this essay, callous disregard need not attend terror bombing, and might
well attend strategic bombing. In cases where callous disregard attends strategic
bombing, I think we will want to say that nevertheless the action plan is morally
permissible (provided the military asset is targeted as usual), but that SB has a
bad character. Finally, we note that the pilot charged with terror bombing may
exhibit genuine regret at what she is planning to do, and that this reflects well
on her character. There may even be sets of cases where the attitudes displayed
towards the civilian deaths are such that whileTB itself is morally impermissible
unlike SB, we nevertheless end up evaluating the character of the terror bomber
herself as just as or even less reprehensible than the strategic bomber.
V.
I’d like to conclude this short essay with a new application of DDE that
strikes me as illuminating a way that complex intentions can figure usefully in
our practical reasoning. The case should be of special interest to Roman Catholic
moral philosophers. I will outline a possible way of employing DDE so as to
permit married couples to engage in sexual intercourse while employing condoms
when one of the partners has been previously infected with the HIV virus. This
application has contemporary relevance especially to ministry in the African
continent, where HIV infection has reached epidemic proportions.
We begin with the thought that standard sexual intercourse is an important
if not integral component of a loving sexual union between partners united in the
sacrament of marriage. This is a crucial presupposition, for were it not so then
the ultimate end of wholesome sexual congress between married persons as an
expression of their abiding love for one another would fail to be a proportionately
important good in relation to the bad aspect of condom usage, specifically that
it interferes with natural procreative processes in what has traditionally been
referred to as an “artificial” way.
Having said this, it seems that a married couple one partner to which has
been previously infected with the HIV virus could adopt the following joint com-
plex intention: to engage in sexual intercourse while endeavoring to prevent the
transmission of the virus to the uninfected partner. They would do this through
condom usage, which has been shown to be highly effective in preventing the
10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly10
spread of HIV during standard sexual intercourse. It does not seem unreasonable
in such a case that the stipulated bad aspect of condom usage, namely that it
interferes with natural procreative processes, is not intended at all, but is rather a
merely foreseen side effect of the joint complex intention that has been adopted
in furtherance of a good end previously identified.
It’s important to note that the HIV-positive husband is not in any way
trying or intending to interfere with procreative processes; he very well might
regard such interference as a regrettable foreseen side effect of his intentions to
love his wife and avoid infecting her. So, in this sense, it almost seems like the
plan in the case involving the use of the condom has a sort of purity as an act
that arguably is not quite present in the case of natural family planning.
Whether or not the risks of infection even with the proper usage of the
condom outweigh the value a couple may jointly attach to engaging in sexual
intercourse is left open for consideration. In these difficult cases it may simply
be proper to recommend a lifetime of abstinence. It is further left open as an
exceedingly delicate question whether or not wholesome intercourse can be or
should be such a vital component of loving married life that it can be properly
pursued when one of its natural purposes has been significantly compromised,
in this case by the use of artifice. In any event, this final application of double
effect is intended as a sincere meditation on how one might sanction the use
of condoms within the sacrament of marriage given the gravity of the health
crisis we face.
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, Indiana