The Principle of Double Effect #196

Philosophy and current affairs

Should we teach philosophy to young people when accounting would be better for them? Are we evil when we choose to drive a car? Is it right to accept the small risk that comes with mandatory vaccinations? And what if the fire department floods your home? Meet the doctrine of Double Effect.

---

Dear friends of Daily Philosophy,

In our series on the ethics of war, today we’ll talk about a fascinating, classic argument from moral philosophy: the so-called principle of Double Effect. The argument applies to almost any situation in life, although it has often been used to justify killings in war.

Last week, we had an article by Dr Ian James Kidd, “Shénnóng and the Agriculturalist School”:

In Chinese philosophical history, celebration of simple styles of life close to nature is typically attributed to the Daoists. Within the Dàodéjīng, sophistication is a main cause of a violent world that has ‘lost the Way’. Rituals and cleverness feed a superficiality and hypocrisy that was absent in the simpler societies that existed long ago in the past.

Read the whole article here on Daily Philosophy.

We’ve also started reading Epicurus’ Principal Doctrines in our first online reading group. If you’d like to read along, you can head here to read the first eight doctrines and to get a feeling of how the ancient sage tries to make his case:

Epicurus Reading Group #2: Doctrines 1-8

Tomorrow we’re going back to our series about the future of mankind, so if you’re interested in that, please get a premium subscription right here for the price of a fancy coffee a month:

And now, let’s dive into the complexities of doing the right thing.

Naughty and nice

I’ve just come from a class teaching philosophy students. It was a good class. They learned something useful ... or did they?

Employment statistics for philosophers are a little hard to come by, but let’s assume for the sake of this argument that the cliche is right: a philosophy degree will cause you to end up unemployed or serving fries in a fast-food joint. Then, what I just did in the past two hours was to knowingly diminish my students’ chances of getting a good job and having a happy and successful life in the future. Assuming that I knew that they’d earn a lot more as accountants, why isn’t it immoral to keep teaching them philosophy instead? I am effectively robbing them of a better future, even of a specific amount of money for every month in the future where they won’t be earning an accountant’s salary. Am I a thief?