This article describes Catholic natural law tradition by examining its origins in the medieval penitentials, the papal decretals, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and seventeenth-century casuistry. Catholic natural law emerges as a flexible ethic that conceives of human nature as rational and as oriented to certain basic goods that ought to be pursued and whose pursuit is made possible by the virtues. Four approaches to natural law that have evolved within the United States during the twentieth century are then identified, (...) including the traditionalist, proportionalist, right reason, and historicist approaches. The normative implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to ethical issues in the tobacco industry, ITT under Geneen, the marketing of pharmaceuticals, affirmative action, and bribery. It is argued that Alasdair MacIntyre is correct in claiming that the natural law tradition issuperior to the liberal ethics of modern deontology and utilitarianism. (shrink)

All this is tightly reasoned, the argument is packed, but the language is clear."—Christian Century "The man value of this book seems to me to be that it ...

In this major new book, the internationally renowned thinker Jonathan Bennett offers a deeper understanding of what is going on in our own moral thoughts about human behavior. The Act Itself presents a conceptual analysis of descriptions of behavior on which we base our moral judgements, and shows that this analysis can be used as a means toward getting more control of our thoughts and thus of our lives.

If one accepts a version of absolutism that excludes the intentional killing of any innocent human person from conception to natural death, ectopic pregnancy poses vexing difficulties. Given that the embryonic life almost certainly will die anyway, how can one retain ones moral principle and yet adequately respond to a situation that gravely threatens the life of the mother and her future fertility? The four options of treatment most often discussed in the literature are non-intervention, salpingectomy (removal of tube with (...) embryo), salpingostomy (removal of embryo alone), and use of methotrexate (MXT). In this essay, I review these four options and introduce a fifth (the milking technique). In order to assess these options in terms of the absolutism mentioned, it will also be necessary to discuss various accounts of the intention/foresight distinction. I conclude that salpingectomy, salpingostomy, and the milking technique are compatible with absolutist presuppositions, but not the use of methotrexate. (shrink)

McInerny revisits the basics of Thomas's teachings and offers a brief, intelligible, and persuasive summary.

Manuel Velasquez and F. Neil Brady apply the doctrine of double effect to business ethics and conclude that the doctrine allows a pharmaceutical company to sell a drug with potentially fatal side effects only if it also has the good effect of saving lives. This forbidsthe sale of many common products, such as automobiles and alcohol. My account preserves the virtues of the doctrine of double effectwithout making it too restrictive. I apply the doctrine to a pharmaceutical company’s decision to (...) market a drug with dangerous side effects and argue that free markets often offer the best way to compare the good and bad effects of business decisions. I conclude that the doctrine does allow a business to sell a potentially fatal product that does not save lives, provided that it warns consumers about the danger. (shrink)

This chapter analyses making/allowing in terms of positive/negative: you allow something to happen if an explanation of its happening requires only a negative fact about your behaviour. A negative fact about your behaviour is a highly general or uninformative one; it corresponds to almost the whole of the logical space of your possible ways of moving. An objection to this analysis, based on giving a very special status to immobility, is described and countered. The possibility space might have a different (...) metric, i.e. be structured in terms of something other than possible ways of moving. One such alternative metric is discussed. (shrink)

We describe the Catholic natural law tradition by examining its origins in the medieval penitentials, the papal decretals, the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and seventeenth century casuistry. Catholic natural law emerges as a flexible ethic that conceives of human nature as rational and as oriented to certain basic goods that ought to be pursued and whose pursuit is made possible by the virtues. We then identify four approaches to natural law that have evolved within the United States during the twentieth (...) century, including the traditionalist, proportionalist, right reason, and historicist approaches. The normative implications of these approaches are discussed in relation to ethical issues in the tobacco industry, ITT under Geneen, the marketing of pharmaceuticals, affirmative action, and bribery. It is argued that Alasdair MacIntyre is correct in claiming that the natural law tradition is superior to the liberal ethics of modern deontology and utilitarianism. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect continues to be an important tool in bioethical casuistry. Its role within the Catholic moral tradition continues, and there is considerable interest in it by contemporary moral philosophers. But problems of justification and correct application remain. I argue that if the traditional Catholic conviction that there are exceptionless norms prohibiting inflicting some kinds of harms on people is correct, then double effect is justified and necessary. The objection that double effect is superfluous is a rejection (...) of that normative conviction, not a refutation of double effect itself. This justification suggests the correct way of applying double effect to controversial cases. But versions of double effect which dispense with the absolutism of the Catholic tradition lack justification and fall to the objection that double effect is an unnecessary complication. Keywords: double effect, intention, side effect CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

. How does the doctrine of double effect apply to business decisions to sell products which may be harmful to consumers? Lawrence Masek believes that some authors have misapplied the doctrine to this type of decision and, as a consequence, have committed themselves to placing unwarranted constraints on businesses. Seeking to correct this mistake, Masek presents his account of how the doctrine applies here, an account which is rather permissive but which, he claims, nevertheless preserves the virtues of the doctrine. (...) It will be seen, though, that his attempt to loosen these putatively unnecessary constraints by appealing to consumer autonomy and an intuition about the morality of producing harmful products leaves the doctrine of double effect irrelevant to this type of decision. His argument that the doctrine is less restrictive in this context than others suppose leads ultimately to the conclusion that the doctrine does not constrain this kind of business decision at all. (shrink)