On The Moral Significance of Doing Harm/Allowing Harm Distinction
Date Issued
2007
Date
2007
Author(s)
Huang, Chih-Ying
DOI
zh-TW
Abstract
In commonsense morality, it seems to be an undeniable and widespread view that doing harm to the innocent is more reprehensible than merely allowing harm, even if harming one individual is the only way to save many others from being harmed. Such a belief is not only reflected in our law and religious thought, but also in many discourses of contemporary medical ethics. There are, however, many ethicists who call into question that the distinction between doing harm and allowing harm is morally significant, and argue against it as a normative factor that possesses moral relevance at the normative level.
The main purpose of this thesis is to undertake this controversial issue, to discuss whether the doing harm/allowing harm distinction is relevant to the determination of the moral status of actions. This thesis can be divided into three parts to elucidate:
The first one of the central aims is to ask how to adequately distinguish doing harm from allowing harm, that is, to inquire what criterion should be adopted to characterize the distinction which can correspond with our ordinary linguistic usage. The second point will be to analyze some cases constructed to refute the assumption that this distinction makes a difference in moral assessment, and to illustrate the relevant disputes and arguments arising from those counterexamples. The third is concerned with the justification for this distinction’s moral significance. To find out how one justifies the moral relevance of this distinction, we will undertake some probable reasons, from which this assumption is derived, to examine whether those reasons are satisfactory to defend that doing harm is morally worse than allowing harm.
In conclusion, I point out that through proper interpretation of “moral significance”, the doing harm/allowing harm distinction is conditionally justified as morally relevant, but it is not strong enough to support “doing harm” to become a “constraint against doing harm”, a normative factor outweighing the promotion of good.
Subjects
為害
允害
殺人
聽任死亡
道德意涵
Doing harm
Allowing harm
killing
letting die
moral significance
Type
thesis
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