The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect

Introduction

Foot published the essay in 1967 in the Oxford Review, at a time when abortion law was being debated in Britain. She examines the Catholic doctrine of double effect, which distinguishes what one intends from what one merely foresees. To test it she compares cases: a judge who could frame and execute an innocent man to prevent a riot, and the driver of a runaway tram who can steer from a track where five are working onto one where only one is working. Foot suggests that a distinction between negative duties (not to harm) and positive duties (to help) explains our intuitions better. Judith Jarvis Thomson later named the case the trolley problem and added new variants.

Connections

Builds on

• Intention1957 · G. E. M. Anscombe

Taken up in

• Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem1976 · Judith Jarvis Thomson

More works by Philippa Foot

• 2001Natural Goodness