The double effect: regarding war

Wrentham, MA 2009

I'm taking a graduate seminar on "The Challenge of Peace" (e.g., essays pro- and anti-just war) and have recently come across a notion called "the double effect". In her essay, "The Justice of the Present War Examined" (1981), Anscombe tells us that the double effect only excuses a grave incidental consequence (e.g., the killing of noncombatants or innocent civilians) where the balance of the total effects of an action is on the side of good. She makes the distinction between attacking a group of persons directly and killing them accidentally in the course of attack on others; she continues, "it is a different thing, while making one group of persons a target, to kill others by accident, and to make a group persons a target, in order - by attacking them all - to attack some members of the group who are persons who may be legitimately attacked". The first case, she says, involves no sin; the second involves murder and is not an example of a double effect.

Here's the rub: the catechism states, "Unintentional killing is not morally imputable, but one is not exonerated from grave offense if, without proportionate reasons, he has acted in a way that brings about someone's death, even without the intention to do so; all citizens and all governments are obliged to work for the avoidance of war..however..governments cannot be denied the right of lawful self-defense..the mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties" (CCC # 2269, 2308, 2312).

I am left wondering if concepts like the double effect have too often and too hastily been used by states as a means to justify the use of excessive military force, often destroying the lives of the very people they claim to be protecting. I'm still parsing the concepts and theories - obviously a very complex problem.