COVID-19 Vaccines, Aborted Baby Cell-Lines and Catholic Moral Theology - Part C: St. Thomas' Principle of Double Effect

JMJ

The next stop in working through the vaccine issue is to understand the Catholic principle of Double Effect.

I decided to not take everyone's word about the principle of double effect, so I broke it down to confirm it's four basic principles.

The principle of double-effect has four criteria.

The act must be moral, meaning it cannot be immoral (ie evil). This is the simple principle that the ends do not justify the means.
Any bad effect (result) must be accidental or indirectly caused, whereas the good effect is directly caused.
The intention that directs the action must be to create only the good effect. For example, you cannot intend to kill someone, but you can intend to protect your life.
Finally, the intended effect must be proportional to the intended end.

So ... if any of these criteria missing, the act is sinful.

It is pretty simple once you work through the criteria, but I have run into Traditional Catholics who have difficulty accepting this principles.

In the next article, I will breakdown the principles regarding how you can be cooperate in evil.

P^3

Comments

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