Beruflich Dokumente
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Author(s): by MatthewHanser
Source: Ethics, Vol. 115, No. 3 (April 2005), pp. 443-470
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
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443
ARTICLES
Permissibility and Practical Inference*
Matthew Hanser
Many are drawn, at least initially, to the view that an agents reasons for
acting have a direct bearing on whether he acts permissibly. A number
of inuential philosophers, however, have argued that this view is in-
correct and that its appeal must derive from some sort of confusion.
According to these philosophers, an agents reasons for acting may
reveal the quality of his character or help determine the extent to which
he is at fault for, or deserves praise or blame for, acting as he does, but
they rarely, and then only indirectly, bear on whether he acts permis-
sibly.
1
This latter view naturally recommends itself if one takes acting
impermissibly to be a matter of doing something against which a decisive
moral case can be made, even if only in retrospect. Different moral
theories give different accounts of what might constitute a decisive moral
case against acting in a certain way, but all agree that whether a case
can be made against acting in a certain way is independent of any agents
actual grounds for acting in that way.
I wish to examine a rather different way of thinking about per-
missibility, one according to which, roughly speaking, an agent acts
impermissibly if and only if he acts for reasons insufcient to justify him
* I presented many of the ideas contained in this article in a graduate seminar I
taught at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in 2000. I thank the members
of that seminar, especially Julie Tannenbaum and Benjamin Caplan, for their questions,
comments, and objections. I presented an earlier version of the article at a colloquium
at UCLA the following year; I thank that audience for its feedback as well. Finally, I thank
this journals referees for their comments.
1. See, e.g., Jonathan Bennett, Morality and Consequences, in Tanner Lectures on
Human Values, vol. 2, ed. S. McMurrin (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1981),
95116, 97; Judith Jarvis Thomson, Self-Defense, Philosophy & Public Affairs 20 (1991):
283310, 29296, and Physician-Assisted Suicide: Two Moral Arguments, Ethics 109
(1999): 497518, 51418; and T. M. Scanlon, Intention and Permissibility I, Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, suppl., 74 (2000): 30117, and Moral Assessment and the Agents
Point of View (unpublished manuscript, Harvard University, 2002).
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444 Ethics April 2005
in doing what he does. For reasons that will emerge in Section II, I call
this the inferential account of permissibility. I shall not here try to prove
that this account is superior to its rivals. My aims are more modest. I
shall develop the inferential account, exhibiting some of its attractions
along the way, and then show that it is invulnerable to a number of
inuential objections to the very idea that an agents reasons for acting
could be directly relevant to whether he acts permissibly. If these ob-
jections have seemed decisive, it is because we have not considered the
full range of possible accounts. The inferential account of permissibility
is both plausible and attractiveit deserves to be taken seriously.
I
Let us begin by distinguishing between the things an agent does when
he acts and his doing of those things. One thing I did this morning was
drink a cup of coffee. Millions of others did the very same thing. The
things we do, then, such as drinking cups of coffee, are act types that
we can instantiate by acting. My drinking of a cup of coffee this morning,
by contrast, was a particular, unrepeatable instantiation of that type,
distinct from anyone elses drinking of a cup of coffee. I shall reserve
the term action for such particulars. An action, then, as I shall be using
the term, is not something an agent does, but his doing of something.
And I shall take it for granted that an action can instantiate more than
one type, that it can be the doing of more than one thing.
Permissibility judgments can be divided into two main categories.
Adjectival permissibility judgments (e.g., fing is [im]permissible; it is
[im]permissible to f) concern act types: they specify things agents may
or may not do. In ordinary circumstances, for example, driving to the
store is permissible, while driving there in your neighbors car, without
her permission, is not. Adverbial permissibility judgments (e.g., x acted
[im]permissibly), by contrast, concern particular actions, either actual
or hypothetical. Some adverbial permissibility judgments include a
phrase that characterizes the action as one instantiating a certain act
type (e.g., x fd [im]permissibly; x acted [im]permissibly in fing). In
such cases the characterizing phrase, whether a verb phrase or a ge-
rundive phrase, can be interpreted as occurring either opaquely or
transparently, so to speak.
2
On the opaque reading, the truth value
of the permissibility judgment depends upon how the action is char-
acterized. Suppose that I drive to the store in my neighbors car, without
her permission. On the opaque reading we can say that although I act
permissibly in driving to the store, I act impermissibly in driving there
in my neighbors car, without her permission. On the transparent
2. I say so to speak because the phrases that may or may not be substitutable for
one another are not singular terms both denoting the agents action.
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 445
reading, however, the truth value of the permissibility judgment does
not depend upon how the action is characterized. On this reading it
would be incorrect to say that I act permissibly in driving to the store.
If I drive there in my neighbors car, without her permission, then I act
impermissibly in driving there. I do not drive to the store permissibly.
Transparent adverbial permissibility judgments enable us to express
overall verdicts about actions. They enable us to say not just whether
an agent acts permissibly insofar as his action instantiates this or that
type, but whether he acts permissibly full stop. In what follows, all ad-
verbial permissibility judgments should be understood transparently.
The question naturally arises whether permissibility judgments of
the one type (adjectival or adverbial) are reducible to, or are concep-
tually posterior to, judgments of the other. There are three possibilities.
First, adverbial permissibility judgments might be reducible to adjectival
judgments. Perhaps, for example, the claim that an agent acts permis-
sibly simply amounts to the claim that he does nothing impermissible
in acting as he does. The inferential account, however, rejects the re-
duction of adverbial permissibility judgments to adjectival ones. A strong
version of the account maintains that the reduction properly runs in
the other direction; a weak version denies that judgments of either sort
can be reduced to those of the other. Someone defending the weak
version must of course provide an account of how judgments of the two
sorts are related, since it cannot be a complete coincidence that judg-
ments of both sorts employ variants of the same concept (permissibility).
I return to this in Section III. In the remainder of this section, I briey
explore how the strong versions reduction of adjectival permissibility
judgments to adverbial ones might go.
Adjectival permissibility judgments fall into two main types. We can
judge fing to be permissible or impermissible in such and such cir-
cumstances, or we can judge it to be permissible or impermissible sim-
pliciter. Let us begin with the judgments that are relativized to circum-
stances. As we have already observed, from the fact that it is permissible
to f in circumstances C, it does not follow that an agent who fs in C
acts permissibly. There may be many ways of fing in C, and it may be
that by fing in the particular way he does the agent acts impermissibly.
If there is no way to f permissibly in C, however, I think that it follows
that fing is impermissible in those circumstances. So here is a plausible
reduction for those adjectival permissibility judgments that are relativ-
ized to circumstances: to say that fing is permissible in C is to say that
it is possible to f permissibly in C, while to say that fing is impermissible
in C is to say that it is not possible to f permissibly in C.
Given this analysis, one might expect the claim that fing is permis-
sible simpliciter to amount to the claim that it is possible to f permissibly
in every circumstance. But no matter how benign a given act type is in
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446 Ethics April 2005
itself, we can surely always imagine a situation in which it would be im-
possible to instantiate it permissibly. So if this proposal were correct, pretty
much everything would be impermissible. A more promising reduction
is this: to say that fing is permissible simpliciter is to say that in some
circumstances, it is possible to f permissibly, while to say that fing is
impermissible simpliciter is to say that in no circumstances is it possible to
f permissibly. On this analysis, unrelativized adjectival impermissibility
judgments express absolute prohibitions. Now we do indeed sometimes
use expressions of the form fing is impermissible in this way. Often,
however, we use them to assert merely pro tanto prohibitions. We might,
for example, judge stealing to be impermissible, while at the same time
admitting that under exceptional circumstancescircumstances in which
special justifying conditions obtaina person might steal permissibly. We
should thus supplement the proposed reduction as follows. When fing
is impermissible is used to assert a prohibition that is at least pro tanto
in strength, it amounts to the claim that there are no nonexceptional
circumstances in which it is possible to f permissibly. (This is, of course,
consistent with there being no circumstances at all in which it is possible
to f permissibly, in which case the prohibition is absolute.) When fing
is impermissible is used to assert a merely pro tanto prohibition, it
amounts to the claim that there are circumstances, but only exceptional
ones, in which it is possible to f permissibly.
II
Both strong and weak versions of the inferential account reject the
reduction of adverbial permissibility judgments to adjectival ones. How,
then, are adverbial permissibility judgments to be understood? The in-
ferential accounts essence lies in its answer to this question.
Actions are occurrences: they are among the things that happen.
But they are not just occurrences: they are also exercises of our rational
power to do things. (I here set aside the less full-blown actions of
lower animals.) When we judge an agent to have acted permissibly, we
evaluate his action not merely qua occurrence but qua action, qua ex-
ercise of rational agency. In order to determine what it is to act per-
missibly, then, we must inquire further into the nature of action. Now
according to a widely accepted view, every action is someones doing of
something intentionally.
3
Not everything an agent does in performing
a given action is done intentionally, according to this view, but some of
them must be. It is also widely held that to do something intentionally
3. See Donald Davidson, Agency, in Agent, Action, and Reason, ed. Robert Binkley,
Richard Bronaugh, and Ausonio Marras (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971),
325, reprinted in Davidsons Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980),
4361, 46.
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 447
is to do it for a reason. If both these views are correct, then every action
is someones doing of something for a reason. There is admittedly room
for disagreement here. Sometimes when an agent does something in-
tentionally, he does it, as we say, for no particular reason. Some think
that such cases provide counterexamples to the claim that to do some-
thing intentionally is to do it for a reason.
4
Others think that when an
agent says he is fing for no particular reason, he means only that he
has no further end in view in fingthat he is fing simply because he
wants to, or because he enjoys it, these being genuine, although perhaps
degenerate, reasons for acting.
5
And even if it is possible to do something
intentionally without doing that something for a reason, it might still
be that every action is someones doing of something or other for a
reason. Suppose that I pluck a blade of grass for no particular reason.
In performing this action, I move my hand in a certain way, and it is
plausible to say that I move my hand in that way both intentionally and
for a reason, namely, to pluck the blade of grass. So my act of plucking
the blade of grass is still the doing of something for a reason. If there
are cases in which an agent acts without thereby doing anything for a
reason, they must presumably be cases in which the agent moves his
body in a certain way for no particular reason. I shall return to this
possibility shortly. For the moment, however, let us assume that every
action is indeed someones doing of something for a reason.
An agents reason for doing something purports to justify his doing
of that for which it is a reason. We can represent the normative nature
of this relation by thinking of actions as embodying practical inferences:
when an agent fs for reason R, it is as if he reasons, R; therefore let me
f! (I say it is as if he reasons this way because I mean to imply nothing
about what thoughts, if any, must precede or accompany action. One
certainly neednt say to oneself, R; therefore let me f! in order for R
to be ones reason for fing.) But if actions embody inferences, then
actions can be evaluated with respect to the quality of these inferences.
That is the idea upon which the inferential account of permissibility seizes.
As a preliminary formulation, we might say that according to the in-
ferential account, an agent acts permissibly if and only if the practical
inference embodied by his action is a good oneif and only if, that is,
the premises of that inference justify, or provide adequate grounds for,
the acceptance of its conclusion. But this cannot be quite right as an
account of moral permissibility. An agent who has insufcient reason
for doing what he does need not on that account be acting morally
impermissibly. So let us say that an agent acts morally permissibly if and
4. See G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963), 2425.
5. See Donald Davidson, Actions, Reasons, and Causes, Journal of Philosophy 60
(1963): 685700, reprinted in his Essays on Actions and Events, 319, 6.
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448 Ethics April 2005
only if his action embodies a practical inference whose premises jus-
tifying force, if any, is not successfully undermined or defeated by any
moral considerations. Let us call such practical inferences permissible.
An agent acts permissibly, then, if and only if his action embodies a
permissible practical inference.
6
(For the sake of simplicity I shall some-
times, in what follows, revert to the preliminary formulation of the view,
omitting the qualication about moral considerations.)
Returning to the observation with which this section began, we can
see that the inferential account easily explains why permissibility judg-
ments canot have mere occurrences as their objects. The power to act
is a rational power: it is the power to do things for reasons. According
to the inferential account, acting permissibly is a matter of not going
astray (in a certain way) in ones exercise of this power. It is a matter,
roughly speaking, of basing ones practical conclusions on adequate
reasons. Adverbial permissibility judgments thus evaluate actions qua
exercises of agency and not merely qua physical occurrences.
What of actions performed for no reason, assuming for the moment
that such actions are possible? We can think of an agent who acts for
no reason as drawing a practical conclusion on the basis of no premises
at all. If there is a moral reason for him not to act as he does, then the
(nonexistent) justifying force of his premises is defeated by a moral
consideration, and so he acts impermissibly. If there are no moral rea-
sons for him not to act as he does, then the (nonexistent) justifying
force of his premises is not defeated by any moral considerations, and
so he acts permissibly. Even if there are actions performed for no reason,
then, this neednt be seen as a fatal blow to the inferential account.
A few further clarications are in order before we move on. An
agent may pursue multiple, independent ends in performing a single
action, and even when he has but one nal end, some of his means to
that end will themselves function as subordinate ends. The practical
inference embodied by an action, then, should be taken to encompass
a complex inferential chain, not just a single inferential step. Further-
more, even when an agent does explicitly rehearse a chain of inferential
steps prior to acting, he does not typically rehearse the inference em-
bodied by his action all the way down to its ultimate conclusion. Suppose
an agent explicitly reasons, I can w by xing; so let me x; I can x by
fing; so let me f. If fing is something he already knows how to do,
this is where his reasoning will stop. But when it comes to acting, he
wont just f. Hell f in some particular waywith his right hand, say,
and with a certain amount of force. Most likely, the agent will be unable
fully to conceptualize his manner of fing. He will be able to specify it
6. The question how best to extend this account to cover judgments of the form x
acts [im]permissibly in not fing will be addressed elsewhere.
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 449
only demonstrativelyhis ultimate conclusion, were he explicitly to
think it, would be something like, so Ill f like this (as he moves his
right hand in a certain way). The conclusion of the practical inference
must be taken to include more than the mere so let me f if the
inferential account of permissibility is to be plausible. Suppose an agent
consciously reasons, I can protect the baby from the cold draft by
closing this door; so let me close this door. He then closes the door
quite forcefullyforcefully enough to awaken the baby. Assuming that
he could easily have closed the door quietly, it is arguable that he acted
impermissibly. The inferential account would be unable to capture this
if the inference embodied by his action were to encompass no more
than what the agent explicitly thought, for there was no reason why he
shouldnt close the door. What he had a decisive reason not to do was
close the door so forcefully.
The inferential account of permissibility must not be confused with
the supercially similar view that an agent acts permissibly if and only
if he acts from a morally admirable motive, such as universal benevo-
lence or respect for the moral law. The inferential account does not
even imply that an agent acts impermissibly if he acts from a morally
discreditable motive, such as malice or greed. What matters is not the
moral status of the agents reason for acting, considered on its own, but
the justicatory relation between that reason and that for which it is a
reason. What matters is whether the agents reason for acting is sufcient
to justify him in doing what he does. Suppose an agent rescues a drown-
ing swimmer because he expects a reward. He may not act virtuously,
and his action may lack moral worth, but he acts permissibly. A more
admirable reason for saving the swimmers life was available, and a more
admirable agent would have availed himself of it, but the agents actual
reason nonetheless provided him with sufcient justication for doing
what he did. Finally, note that the inferential account makes a purely
formal claim, in the following sense: while it links the notion of acting
permissibly to that of an agents acting for a reason sufcient to justify
him in doing what he does, it says nothing substantive about what con-
stitutes a successful justication. On this issue it is, I think, quite properly
silent.
III
Let us return now to the relationship between adverbial and adjectival
permissibility judgments. According to the strong version of the infer-
ential account, adjectival permissibility judgments are reducible to ad-
verbial ones. A multipronged reduction was proposed in Section I. First,
it was suggested that it is permissible to f in circumstances C reduces
to it is possible to f permissibly in circumstances C. Putting this to-
gether with the inferential account of what it is to act permissibly, we
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450 Ethics April 2005
get that it is permissible to f in C if and only if it is possible for an act
of fing in C to embody a permissible practical inference. Next, it was
suggested that when it is impermissible to f [simpliciter] expresses an
absolute prohibition, it reduces to in no circumstances is it possible to
f permissibly. Putting this together with the inferential account of what
it is to act permissibly, we get that it is absolutely impermissible to f if
and only if there are no circumstances in which it is possible for an act
of fing to embody a permissible practical inference. Finally, it was sug-
gested that when it is impermissible to f expresses a merely pro tanto
prohibition, it reduces to there are circumstances, but only exceptional
ones, in which it is possible to f permissibly. Putting this together with
the inferential account of what it is to act permissibly, we get that it is
merely pro tanto impermissible to f if and only if there are circum-
stances, but only exceptional ones, in which it is possible for an act of
fing to embody a permissible practical inference. In each case, what
makes it possible or impossible for an act of fing to embody a permis-
sible practical inference is the availability or unavailability, either in the
specied circumstances or in some circumstances or other, of an ade-
quate justication for acting in a way that involves fing. Simplifying
somewhat, then, the picture is this: it is permissible to f if and only if
an adequate justication for acting in a way that involves fing is
available.
The strong version of the inferential account arrives at this picture
by means of its reduction of adjectival permissibility judgments to ad-
verbial permissibility judgments, taken together with its account of ad-
verbial permissibility judgments. The weak version, which holds that
neither sort of judgment is reducible to the other, can accept essentially
the same picture but must arrive there directly, by means of its account
of adjectival permissibility judgments. This account can state that it is
permissible to f in C if and only if considerations obtain in C sufcient
to justify an agent in acting in a way that involves fing; that it is absolutely
impermissible to f if and only if there exists a pro tanto moral objection
to fing that can in no circumstances be overcome (or, in other words,
if and only if nothing could justify an agent in acting in a way that
involves fing); and that it is merely pro tanto impermissible to f if and
only if there are pro tanto moral objections to fing that can be overcome
in exceptional circumstances (or, in other words, if and only if consid-
erations capable of justifying an agent in acting in a way that involves
fing can arise, but only in exceptional circumstances). I remarked in
Section I that the proponent of the weak version must explain how
adjectival and adverbial permissibility judgments are related. The con-
nection is now apparent. According to the weak version, adjectival and
adverbial permissibility judgments both concern practical justication.
Adjectival judgments, which have act types as their subjects, concern
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 451
the availability of justications for acting in various ways. Adverbial judg-
ments, which have particular actions as their subjects, concern agents
actual justications for acting as they do. Again simplifying somewhat:
fing is permissible if and only if an adequate justication for acting in
a way that involves fing is (at least potentially) available, and an agent
acts permissibly if and only if he actually avails himself of an adequate
justication for acting as he doesif and only if his reason for acting
provides him with an adequate justication for doing what he does.
7
IV
Although the inferential account of permissibility entails that whether
an agent acts permissibly depends upon his reasons for acting, and
hence upon the intentions with which he acts, it is distinct from, and
independent of, the principle of double effect. Since the principle of
double effect and the thesis that intentions are relevant to permissibility
7. In Intention and Permissibility I and Moral Assessment and the Agents Point
of View, Scanlon argues that moral principles, which on his view tell us that certain
considerations normally count decisively for or against acting in certain ways, have two
uses: agents can use them as guides to deliberation, and others can use them to assess
the quality of agents deliberations. The former, action-guiding use yields permissibility
judgments, which depend only upon whether the available reasons count for or against
the proposed action. The latter, critical use yields judgments about how well this or that
agent has governed himself; judgments of this sort obviously depend upon the agents
reason for acting as he did. Scanlons view and mine might thus appear to be notational
variants of one another: he treats all permissibility judgments the way I treat adjectival
permissibility judgments, and where I would say that an agent acts impermissibly, he would
say that the agent governs himself badly. But our disagreement is not just terminological.
Scanlon draws a sharp distinction between permissibility judgments, which he takes to
play a role in deliberation, and judgments about the degrees to which agents are at fault
for acting as they do. And he equates assessments of agents self-governance withjudgments
about fault (see Moral Assessment and the Agents Point of View, 33). In Sec. VI, however,
I argue that both adjectival and adverbial permissibility judgments, understood as the
inferential account understands them, play guiding roles in deliberation, and in Sec. V I
argue that adverbial permissibility judgments, understood as the inferential account un-
derstands them, are independent of judgments about fault. If this is right, then the judg-
ments about whose classication Scanlon and I apparently disagree belong on the per-
missibility side of his divide. He and I dont just give these judgments different names;
we see them as playing different theoretical roles. We have other substantive disagreements
as well. Scanlon takes all permissibility judgments, whether adjectival or adverbial, to
concern concrete actions (Moral Assessment and the Agents Point of View, 3). I take
adjectival judgments, which I agree do not depend upon agents reasons for acting, to
concern act types. Only adverbial judgments, which I think do depend upon agents
reasons for acting, concern concrete acts. And whereas I see adverbial permissibility judg-
ments as our most basic evaluations of actions, Scanlon sees assessments of agents self-
governance as evaluations not of actions but of agents. Finally, if the strong version of the
inferential account is correct, adverbial permissibility judgments are conceptually prior to
adjectival ones. Scanlon, however, would presumably reject the idea that assessments of
agents self-governance are conceptually prior to permissibility judgments.
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452 Ethics April 2005
have not generally been distinguished in the literature, it is worth paus-
ing to explore exactly how the two are related.
If an agent fs in order to achieve end E, he fs intentionally, and
he does so with the intention of achieving E. Now according to the
inferential account, an agent acts permissibly if and only if his reason
for acting is not on moral grounds insufcient to justify him in doing
what he does. So if an agents reason for acting is instrumental, he acts
permissibly if and only if, given his circumstances, his end is not on
moral grounds insufcient to justify his means. Whether an agent acts
permissibly thus depends upon the identity of both his end and his
means: change either and you risk changing the actions normative
status. Suppose that an agent fs with the intention of achieving E and
that he thereby acts permissibly. The inferential account entails that he
might have acted impermissibly had he either (i) done something else
with the intention of achieving E, or (ii) fd with the intention of achiev-
ing something else.
8
As I have already noted, however, the inferential
account of permissibility is purely formal: it says nothing about which
ends justify which means.
The principle of double effect, by contrast, makes a more substan-
tive claim. In order to see what this claim is, let us consider a standard
example. Pilot 1 proposes to advance his sides war effort by bombing
an enemy munitions factory. Because of the inaccuracy inherent in this
sort of bombing, he foresees that he will almost certainly kill a number
of patients in the adjacent childrens hospital. Pilot 2 proposes to ad-
vance his sides war effort by bombing a childrens hospital: he believes
that such terror attacks weaken the enemys resolve. He foresees that
in doing this he will almost certainly damage the adjacent munitions
factory. Both pilots expect to kill the same number of children. Now
suppose that they carry out their plans, with the expected results. Pilot
2 intentionally kills the children, with the intention of thereby furthering
his sides war effort. Pilot 1 intentionally damages the factory, with the
intention of thereby furthering his sides war effort, but he does not,
let us grant, intentionally kill the children.
9
Suppose that pilot 2 acts
8. Everyone agrees that the agent might have acted impermissibly had he done some-
thing else in order to achieve his end. The controversy concerns clause ii. Furthermore,
those rejecting the inferential account would say that the reference to the agents end in
clause i is unnecessary. In their view the relevant point is simply that if the agent had
done something else instead of fing, the moral status of his action might have been
different.
9. Some would insist that pilot 1 does kill the children intentionally. If they are right,
then this is not a proper example for illustrating the principle of double effect. Some
would deny that any example can coherently illustrate the principle, since the distinction
between doing something intentionally and doing it with mere foresight is incoherent.
As our aim is simply to understand the principle, we can safely ignore these worries.
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 453
with insufcient justication. His practical inferenceI can advance
my sides war effort by killing these children; so let me kill these chil-
drenis a poor one. Does it follow that pilot 1 likewise acts with in-
sufcient justication? Does it follow that his practical inferenceI can
advance my sides war effort by damaging this factory; so let me damage
this factoryis likewise, given his circumstances, a poor one? (Obvi-
ously one of the relevant circumstances is that if he attempts to damage
the factory, he will almost certainly kill a number of innocent children.)
There are two positions one can take here:
Position A: If pilot 2 acts with insufcient justication, then so too
does pilot 1.
Position B: It is not the case that if pilot 2 acts with insufcient jus-
tication, then so too does pilot 1.
Position A is in turn an application of the following more general thesis,
which we may call the A Thesis:
If an agent would not be justied in drawing the practical con-
clusion let me cause N.N. to suffer a harm of type h on the basis
of the premise causing N.N. to suffer a harm of type h would
promote E, and if he knows that if he were to f he would cause
N.N. to suffer a harm of type h, then, other things being equal,
neither would he be justied in drawing the practical conclusion
let me f on the basis of the premise fing would promote E.
Put more simply and roughly, the A Thesis states that if a given end is
insufcient to justify intentional harming, then, other things being
equal, that end is also insufcient to justify foreseen but unintended
harming. Position B is an application of the denial of this thesis. Let us
call this denial the B Thesis.
Both theses make substantive claims about what is capable of jus-
tifying what, and both are consistent with the inferential account of
permissibility. If we conjoin the inferential account with the A Thesis,
we get a view according to which if pilot 2 acts impermissibly, then so
too does pilot 1. If we conjoin the inferential account with the B Thesis,
we get a view according to which it is not the case that if pilot 2 acts
impermissibly, then so too does pilot 1. So now, nally, we can say clearly
how the principle of double effect is related to the inferential account
of permissibility. The principle of double effect states that there can in
principle be circumstances in which an agent would act impermissibly
if he were to harm someone as a means to his end, but in which he
would act permissibly were he to pursue that same end by doing some-
thing that will foreseeably result in someones suffering an equivalent
harm, provided that he would not be harming that person intention-
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454 Ethics April 2005
ally.
10
And as we have seen, this view is simply the result of conjoining
the inferential account with the B Thesis. So interpreted, then, the
principle of double effect presupposes the inferential account of per-
missibility but is not presupposed by it. Since my aim in this article is
only to defend the inferential account, I thankfully need take no stand
regarding the principle of double effect.
Although one cannot, as many have thought, refute the formal
thesis that intentions are relevant to permissibility simply by refuting
the principle of double effect, some of the familiar objections to the
principle of double effect are also objections to the formal thesis. I shall
address these objections, among others, below.
11
V
The question whether an agent acts permissibly is distinct from, and
independent of, such questions as whether he is at fault for, deserves
credit or discredit for, or shows himself to be a bad person by, acting as
he does. It is possible, for example, for an agent to act impermissibly
without being at fault (traditionally recognized excuses include duress,
nonculpable ignorance, mental abnormality, uncontrollable passion, and
temporary insanity), and it is possible for an agent to be at fault even
though he acts permissibly (this is arguably the case when he does what
he falsely believes to be impermissible). Opponents of the view that in-
tentions are relevant to permissibility often attribute others acceptance
of the view to their failure to recognize that permissibility is independent
of fault, blameworthiness, and the like. Typically this is put forward as a
(partial) diagnosis of why the view nds adherents: those accepting the
view must have mistakenly inferred the relevance of intentions to per-
missibility from their evident relevance to fault, blameworthiness, and
the like.
12
The plausibility of this diagnosis can be questioned, but that
need not concern us here. The diagnosis does not aim to establish that
intentions are irrelevant to permissibility; it aims to explain why people
hold a view that has supposedly already been shown to be mistaken. In
one article, however, Judith Jarvis Thomson seems to make a stronger
claim: she appears to argue that the view that intentions are relevant
to permissibility is inconsistent with the independence of permissibility
from fault. In the following passage she is discussing the case of Alfred,
10. The nal clause is more often formulated as requiring that the agent not intend
the harm. The difference between the formulations need not concern us here.
11. For objections to the principle of double effect that do not challenge the formal
thesis, see Nancy Davis, The Doctrine of Double-Effect: Problems of Interpretation, Pacic
Philosophical Quarterly 65 (1984): 10723; and Jonathan Bennett, The Act Itself (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1995), chap. 11.
12. See, e.g., Thomson, Physician-Assisted Suicide, 517.
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 455
who wants to kill his wife and proposes to achieve this end by giving
her some stuff that he mistakenly thinks is poison:
If fault is irrelevant to permissibility, then so also is intention. If
it is irrelevant to the question whether Alfred may give the stuff
to his wife whether Alfred would be at fault if he did it, then it
must also be irrelevant to this question what intention he would
give her the stuff with if he gave it to her. Alfreds intention is of
moral interest only via its being the case that he will be at fault if
he acts on it, and therefore his intention has no bearing on the
permissibility of his acting if his being at fault itself has no such
bearing.
13
If one were to focus exclusively on the second sentence of this passage,
one might take Thomson to be concerned only with the bearing of
intentions on adjectival permissibility judgments. In this sentence she
concludes that the intention with which Alfred would give his wife the
stuff is irrelevant to the question whether he may give her the stuff
it is irrelevant, that is, to the question whether giving his wife the stuff
is permissible given his circumstances. And this conclusion is of course
consistent with the inferential account, according to which giving her
the stuff is permissible if and only if an adequate justication for acting
in a way that involves doing so is available. I think that it is clear from
the rest of the passage, however, that Thomson means to argue against
the relevance of intentions to any sort of permissibility judgment.
The arguments key premise is that Alfreds intention is of moral
interest only via its being the case that he will be at fault if he acts on
it. Only by ruling out in advance the possibility that intentions are rel-
evant to permissibility directly, in a way that is unmediated by their
relevance to fault, can Thomson use the irrelevance of fault to permis-
sibility to establish the irrelevance of intentions to permissibility. But
Thomson offers no justication for this premise. She thus begs the
question against the inferential account of permissibility.
14
For according
13. Thomson, Self-Defense, 295.
14. The quoted passage occurs after Thomson has already presented other arguments
for the irrelevance of intentions to permissibility. Her aim in the present argument is to
explain why intentions are irrelevant to permissibility: they are irrelevant because fault is
irrelevant. So perhaps she does not intend the argument to have independent force. But
the argument is no more successful on this more modest interpretation. If intentions are
irrelevant to permissibility, then they are relevant neither indirectly, via their acknowledged
relevance to fault, nor directly, in the manner suggested by the inferential account. The
irrelevance of fault to permissibility can be singled out as the explanation why intentions
are irrelevant to permissibility only if the second way in which intentions might have been
relevant to permissibility can be ruled out as an obvious nonstarter. But of course if the
view that intentions bear directly on permissibly is an obvious nonstarter, Thomsons
argument has independent force after all. I thus see no reason to prefer the more modest
interpretation.
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456 Ethics April 2005
to this account, the intentions with which an agent acts bear directly
on whether he acts permissibly, quite independently of whether he is
at fault for acting as he does. Treating moral permissibility as a species
of inferential permissibility precludes none of the traditionally recog-
nized excuses. An agent can be free of fault for making an impermissible
practical inference, and hence for acting impermissibly, if his error is
attributable to duress, nonculpable ignorance, mental abnormality, un-
controllable passion, or insanity. Conversely, he can be at fault for mak-
ing a permissible inference if, for example, he makes it believing it to
be an impermissible one.
15
The independence of permissibility from
fault is entirely consistent with the relevance of intentions to both.
VI
I turn now to what is probably the most powerful and inuential objection
to the view that intentions are relevant to permissibility. A number of
writers have raised essentially the same objection. This is Thomsons ver-
sion:
It is a very odd idea . . . that a persons intentions play a role in
xing what he may or may not do. What I have in mind comes
out as follows. Suppose a pilot comes to us with a request for advice:
See, were at war with a villainous country called Bad, and my
superiors have ordered me to drop some bombs at Placetown in
Bad. Now theres a munitions factory at Placetown, but theres a
childrens hospital there too. Is it permissible for me to drop the
bombs? And suppose we make the following reply: Well, it all
depends on what your intentions would be in dropping the bombs.
If you would be intending to destroy the munitions factory and
thereby win the war, merely foreseeing, though not intending, the
deaths of the children, then yes, you may drop the bombs. On the
other hand, if you would be intending to destroy the children and
thereby terrorize the Bads and thereby win the war, merely fore-
seeing, though not intending, the destruction of the munitions
factory, then no, you may not drop the bombs. What a queer
performance this would be! Can anyone really think that the pilot
should decide whether he may drop the bombs by looking inward
for the intention with which he would be dropping them if he
dropped them?
16
15. It is an entirely objective matterone about which the agent can be mistaken
whether his reasons for acting are sufcient to justify him in acting as he does. Thus,
although whether an agent acts permissibly depends in part upon his subjective states,
it is still in a perfectly good sense an objective question whether he acts permissibly.
16. Thomson, Self-Defense, 293. Scanlon endorses Thomsons argument (Inten-
tion and Permissibility I, 3045), Bennett offers a similar argument (Morality and Con-
sequences, 97), and James Rachels presents an analogous argument against the relevance
of intentions to moral rightness (The End of Life [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986],
95). Bennetts version is the earliest I have encountered.
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 457
Here too it might seem that Thomson is concerned only with adjectival
permissibility judgments. The idea she calls odd is that an agents
intentions should play a role in determining what he may or may not
do (i.e., what it is permissible for him to do), and her pilot asks not
whether he would be acting permissibly if he were to drop the bombs
but only whether dropping them is permissible in his circumstances.
And of course the inferential account does not claim that the intentions
with which an agent would be acting, if he were to act, help determine
what it is permissible for him to do. On the contrary, the account claims
that dropping the bombs is permissible in the pilots circumstances if
and only if a sufcient justication for doing so is available in those
circumstances, and whether a justication is available does not depend
upon the pilots intentions. But here too I think that Thomson means
her argument to rule out the relevance of agents intentions to any sort
of permissibility judgment. So let us imagine that her pilot does ask us
whether hed be acting permissibly if he were to drop his bombs. I take
it that Thomson would still see something absurd in our answering,
Well, it all depends upon what your intentions would be in dropping
the bombs.
Before attempting to reconstruct and evaluate Thomsons argu-
ment, I would like to suggest a few more minor modications to her
example. First, she has the pilot ask us for advice; the absurd speech
then comes from us. Since this introduces an unnecessary complication,
let us instead imagine the exchange Thomson describes as an internal
dialogue: the pilot asks himself whether hed be acting permissibly if
he were to drop his bombs, and he answers, Well, it all depends on
what my intentions would be. That Thomson would not object to this
alteration is evident, I think, from the last sentence of the quoted pas-
sage. Second, her pilot is under orders to drop the bombs. This too
introduces an unwanted complication, so let us suppose instead that
the pilot comes up with the idea himself. This modication should not
affect the soundness of the argument.
Now for a not-so-minor point: I think that we should try to ignore
the fact that Thomsons example involves an application of the principle
of double effect. This may be difcult. One might think that whats
absurd in the imagined answer to the pilots question is precisely the
suggestion that this particular difference in intention should have an
effect on whether he acts permissibly. The children will die either way,
and the pilot knows it. Why should it matter whether he aims at their
deaths or merely foresees them? Surely the only pertinent question is
whether the good he hopes to achieve by dropping the bombs is suf-
cient to justify the sacrice of so many innocent lives. But there is
another (seeming) absurdity in the imagined answer, and I believe that
it is this other absurdity that Thomson is trying to expose. Thomsons
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458 Ethics April 2005
point is that when a deliberating agent must choose a course of conduct,
he should turn his attention outwardhe should consider the circum-
stances in which he nds himself and weigh the likely effects, both
desirable and undesirable, of the available options. To turn his attention
inwardto reect upon the intentions with which he would be acting
would, in Thomsons view, be absurd, a queer performance. I thus
suggest that we try to ignore the details of Thomsons example and
focus instead upon the supposed absurdity of reaching decisions by
looking inward rather than outward.
The general thrust of Thomsons argument is clear enough: the view
that an agents intentions have a bearing on whether he acts permissibly
is incompatible with a certain fact about deliberation, a fact to which her
example is designed to draw our attention. But what exactly is this (sup-
posed) fact? I can think of two possibilities and, correspondingly, two ways
of interpreting Thomsons argument. On the rst interpretation, the
argument goes like this. There would be nothing absurd in a deliberating
agents asking himself whether he would be acting permissibly if he were
to do this or that. Permissibility judgments, both adjectival and adverbial,
can play a guiding role in deliberationthey can help agents reach de-
cisions. But it would be absurd for a deliberating agent who wants to
act permissibly to decide what to do by reecting upon the intentions
with which hed be acting. Whether he would be acting permissibly
consequently cannot depend upon the intentions with which he would
be acting. Here, then, is a condensed statement of the argument, on
this rst interpretation:
1. It would generally be absurd for a deliberating agent, concerned
to act permissibly, to reect, as part of his decision-making process,
upon the intentions with which he would be acting.
2. Therefore, whether an agent acts permissibly cannot generally de-
pend upon the intentions with which he acts.
My response to the argument, so interpreted, is to deny its premise.
Before we can see why the premise is false, however, we must understand
the distinctive deliberative role that the inferential account assigns to
adverbial permissibility judgments.
According to the inferential account, to ask oneself whether one
would be acting permissibly if one were to pursue a certain course of
action is to inquire into the quality of a proposed rst-order practical
inference. It is thus to engage in a sort of practical metareasoning. Of
course, competent practical reasoners do not typically engage in such
higher-order reasoning about the quality of their proposed rst-order
inferences; typically, they simply make the rst-order inferences. But nor
do competent practical reasoners typically make explicit permissibility
judgments in the course of their deliberations. A practical reasoners
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 459
views about permissibility are most often simply implicit in his actions:
they are revealed by the inferences he makes, not explicitly avowed.
17
Even good practical reasoners, however, are sometimes unsure how
much weight certain moral considerations deserve, or how to adjudicate
between conicting moral claims. These are the occasions on which
they are likely explicitly to ask themselves whether they would be acting
permissibly if they were to act this way or that, and to answer these
questions they must ascend to higher-order reasoning about the justi-
catory force of competing rst-order reasons. Suppose, for example,
that an agent is for some reason considering fing but that he is unsure,
in light of the pro tanto moral case to be made against fing, whether
he would be acting permissibly in doing so. To resolve his practical
difculty he must determine whether, given his circumstances, the con-
siderations on whose strength he proposes to f are really sufcient to
justify him in doing so.
It is in such higher-order practical reection, and not in rst-order
practical deliberation, that adverbial permissibility judgments nd their
deliberative home, according to the inferential account. For even when
an agent does explicitly judge, before the fact, that he would be acting
permissibly if he were to f, this judgment expresses no part of his
subsequent reason for fing. Suppose once more that an agent has in
mind a reason for finglet it be Rbut that he is unwilling to act on
this reason until he has satised himself that he would be acting per-
missibly in doing so. And suppose he determines that he would indeed
be acting permissibly: he determines that there are no rst-order moral
reasons against fing sufcient to defeat the justicatory force of R. His
permissibility judgment helps justify a higher-order judgment to the
effect that his proposed rst-order practical inference is a good one.
There is a sense, then, in which the permissibility judgment expresses
part of his justication for acting: he would not have made that inference
had he not thought it a good one. But the permissibility judgment
expresses no part of his reason for fing. His reason for fingthe con-
sideration he now condently takes to justify fingis still simply R. Just
as it would be a mistake to include the overtly higher-order judgment,
The inference from R to Let me f is a good one, among that very
inferences premises, so also it would be a mistake to include the covertly
higher-order judgment, In fing I would be acting permissibly, among
the premises of ones rst-order inference to the conclusion let me f.
(Suppose that a theoretical reasoner is considering judging that p on
the basis of R but that he is unsure whether the inference is a good
17. An agents practical inference can of course fail to reect his views about moral
permissibility. This can happen because of carelessness, but it also happens when an agent
quite deliberately acts contrary to his own moral judgment.
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460 Ethics April 2005
onehe is unsure whether R really is a good reason for judging that
p. If he subsequently satises himself on this score and makes the in-
ference, his inference will run, R; therefore p, not R; the inference
from R to p is a good one; therefore p. His judgment that the
inference is a good one may express part of his reason for making the
inference, but it does not express part of his reason for judging that p.
It does not state one of the premises on the basis of which he draws
the conclusion p.)
Just as the fact that one would be acting permissibly in fing is not
a reason to f, the fact that one would be acting impermissibly in fing
is not a reason not to f. When an agent judges that he would be acting
impermissibly in fing, he judges that his case in favor of fing is insuf-
cient to overcome some moral objection to fing in his circumstances.
The fact that he would be acting impermissibly in fing thus implies the
existence of a rst-order moral reason not to f, but it does not itself
constitute such a reason. Like permissibility, impermissibility is a higher-
order moral concept. When an agent acts impermissibly, it is because
there is some more specic, rst-order moral objection to what he does,
an objection whose force his case in favor of acting in that way has failed
to overcome. The judgment that he acts impermissibly reports this fail-
ure; it does not report the existence of some further moral objection
to what he does.
Let us return now to the premise of the argument under consider-
ation: that it would generally be absurd for a deliberating agent, con-
cerned to act permissibly, to reect, as part of his decision-making process,
upon the intentions with which he would be acting. Consider how the
permissibility question typically arises. An agent has an end in view (ha-
rassing the enemy, let us say) and then hits upon a possible means for
achieving this end (bombing a certain munitions factory). So he sets
about planning his attack. He then notices that there is a childrens
hospital next to the factory, and he wonders whether he should proceed.
Would it really be so absurd if he were to say to himself: Why, again,
was I going to drop my bombs there? What exactly was I hoping to
achieve? And is achieving that end really worth the lives of all those
children? I hear nothing queer in this performance. But in reecting
upon the adequacy of his proposed reasons for dropping the bombs,
he is reecting upon the intentions with which he would be dropping
them. So the premise must be rejected.
There was admittedly something queer about the speech Thomson
imagined in her original version of the example. Her pilot had been
ordered to drop his bombs. Not being privy to his superiors deliber-
ations, he did not know why he was supposed to drop them. He was
thus in no position to assess the adequacy of those reasons. The speech
that Thomson rehearsed suggested that the pilot could instead simply
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Hanser Permissibility and Practical Inference 461
choose an intention with which to drop his bombs. But of course that
is not how it works: the intentions with which one acts reect ones
grounds for choice; they are not, as such, objects of choice. That it
would be absurd to reect upon intentions in the manner exemplied
in Thomsons speech, however, does not entail that it is absurd to reect
upon them in other ways. And I have already described how a delib-
erating agent, concerned to act permissibly, might properly reect upon
the intentions with which he would be acting. (I return briey to Thom-
sons original version of the example in Sec. VIII.)
There is, however, another, better way of interpreting Thomsons
argument. Perhaps what is supposed to be absurd is not the idea that
a deliberating agent might properly reect upon his intentions but,
rather, the idea that he must do this in order to be condent that he
would be acting permissibly. Consider once more the pilot who wonders
whether he would be acting permissibly if he were to drop his bombs.
Perhaps he could, without absurdity, reect upon the adequacy of his
reasons for dropping them (and hence upon the intentions with which
he would be dropping them), but he neednt do this. Instead of turning
his attention inward he can keep it focused outwardhe can ask himself
whether an adequate reason for dropping them exists. Then, having
satised himself that dropping bombs is justiable in his circumstances,
he can simply go ahead and drop them, condent that in doing so he
will be acting permissibly. Having determined that it is permissible to
instantiate a given act type, he can move directly to instantiating that
act type, without ever having to ask himself what his intentions in doing
so would be. But if he can do this, then whether he would be acting
permissibly cannot depend upon what his intentions would be. Or so
the argument would go. Here is a condensed statement of Thomsons
argument, on this second interpretation:
1
should be rejected.
I think that premise ii
, if it is interpreted
to mean what the inferential account says it means. For if premise ii