1997/10/01 by Samuel C. Rickless · 15 citations
Arts and Humanities · Neuroscience · Social Sciences · #Contemporary philosophy #Doctrine #Epistemology #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #Free Will and Agency #General interest #Philosophy #Theology #War, Ethics, and Justification
paper · doi:10.2307/2998512
published in The Philosophical Review 106(4), 555 (Duke University Press)
openalex publication_date 1997/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
There is a long-standing disagreement over whether to accept consequentialism, the view that the morality of an action or omission depends solely on its consequences. In defense of nonconsequentialism, some moral theorists appeal to the widely shared intuition that there is a morally significant difference between doing harm and merely allowing it to occur. According to these theorists, there are cases in which the morality of a given action or omission depends not only on its consequences but also on whether the agent does harm or merely allows it to occur. The thesis that there is such a distinction has come to be known as the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing (DDA).' The various proponents of the DDA differ over how it should be understood. It might be thought that the distinction between doing and allowing reduces to the distinction between action and inaction. As against this, Philippa Foot has argued that some actions, such as pulling the plug on an artificial respirator, should be treated as allowings. On her view, the relevant distinction is primarily one between (i) initiating or sustaining a harmful causal sequence, and (ii) allowing or enabling a harmful causal sequence to run its course.' The view that this is the proper interpretation