Double Effect and the End‐Not‐Means Principle: A Response to Bennett

Proponents of double‐effect reasoning — relying in part on a distinction between intention and foresight — assert that it is worse intentionally to cause harm than to cause harm with foresight but without intention. They hold, for example, that terror bombing is worse than tactical bombing in so far as terror bombing is the intentional harming of non‐combatants while tactical bombing is not. In articulating the ethical relevance of the intended/foreseen distinction, advocates of double effect employ the Kantian end‐not‐means principle. Jonathan Bennett has recently argued that this principle cannot ground the ethical relevance of the intended/foreseen distinction. He holds that the principle demands that one benefit others while double effect deals with acts that do not benefit others. Thus, he maintains, the intended/foreseen distinction does not have ethical import and double effect is not tenable. I argue for a reading of the end‐not‐means principle that grounds the ethical relevance of both the intended/foreseen distinction and double effect.