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Dr. Thomas Cavanaugh, a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College’s Class of 1985, has written Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil, scheduled for publication in June 2006 by Clarendon Press of Oxford University. The Clarendon Press serves as the academic branch of Oxford University Press. Accordingly, it publishes only the most exceptional scholarly works. Professor Cavanaugh’s book is an in-depth study of the ethical principle of double-effect, first formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas to evaluate human acts that foreseeably result in both good and bad effects. More specifically, the principle of double-effect concerns those circumstances in which a man’s otherwise good act may bring about a bad consequence that he foresees but does not intend. While the agent in such a scenario has the primary objective of achieving a good end, his foresight of an associated bad effect raises the question as to the moral permissibility of such an act. On the surface, this inquiry may sound like a highly theoretical exercise. But as Dr. Cavanaugh is quick to point out, there are many situations in which the principle of double-effect comes into play. The ethical parameters of military action and medical care are two pertinent examples he cites. In the military instance, the principle is applied to the bombing of a military target that also involves the deaths of innocent non-combatants. End-of-life issues taken from today’s headlines also call for ethical evaluation in terms of double effect. The principle addresses questions ranging from pain relief of the terminally ill to those circumstances in which one may forgo or remove medical interventions that postpone death. Though Dr. Cavanaugh admits Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil is perhaps more an academic and scholarly text than a practical handbook, he nevertheless hopes it will find a broad audience. Certainly, the principle he examines bears upon important social issues such as the debate over physician-assisted suicide—where clear, ethical thinking is called for, yet seldom found. Dr. Cavanaugh’s work counter-balances that of euthanasia advocates such as Peter Singer. Singer, who holds an endowed chair of bioethics at Princeton University, is one of the founding fathers of the animal rights movement and a proponent of infanticide. “Actually, what I do in my book is argue a very narrow point between Singer and the traditional sanctity-of-life position.” Dr. Cavanaugh explains, “Singer is a consequentialist: he doesn’t think that the intentions of an agent are of any consequence when deciding whether an action is ethical or unethical. What matters to a consequentialist is only what occurs when the agent acts.” In Double-Effect Reasoning one finds a correction for the prevailing errors of ethical thought typified by Singer’s arguments. In the book, Dr. Cavanaugh relies heavily on the insights of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose teachings on these and like matters the Magisterium has made its own for hundreds of years. Dr. Cavanaugh hopes that Double-Effect Reasoning will one day become a foundational text in institutions as varied as military academies, medical schools, and Catholic colleges and universities. Dr. Cavanaugh chairs the Philosophy Department at the University of San Francisco, where he began teaching in 1994. He earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Notre Dame where he studied under Dr. Ralph McInerny, an emeritus member of the College’s Board of Governors. He has published numerous articles on the history of ethics and on medical ethics, and has lectured widely on these subjects across the country and abroad. A native of Erie, Pennsylvania, Dr. Cavanaugh lives in Marin County in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Bonnie, and their son, Thomas.
-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 2005 |
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