Brown Bag Philosophy Seminars

Professor Tom Cavanaugh will be giving an excellent talk to start the Brown Bag Philosophy Seminar Series. Please see the details below:

In contemporary mainstream philosophy, intention’s irrelevance to permissibility (or, IIP) in certain cases treated by double-effect reasoning (such as contrasting physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia that incorporate lethal intent from sedation hastening death that need not so incorporate lethal intent) has become a commonplace. “This important move” noted by Anscombe in her classic essay (Modern Moral Philosophy, 1958) and made by Sidgwick in his magnum opus (Methods of Ethics, 1874) is widely embraced, yet rarely, if ever, examined. Indeed, even Anscombe does not investigate Sidgwick’s grounds for this claim. In this talk, I consider why Sidgwick makes this move and how an advocate of double-effect can reply to him.

For more information, don't hesitate to get in touch with Brandon Marsh, bmarsh@usfca.edu