On October 10th Creighton brought Larry Masek, professor at Ohio Dominican University (Ohio) to campus to speak to our students and community about how we are or are not responsible for the distant effects of our actions.  Dr. Masek has published a book recently on the doctrine of double effect, a principle of Catholic moral teaching which tries to tease out what exactly we are culpable for in such situations.

One memorable example Dr. Masek brought up was an example of Eisenhauer sending troops to Normandy.  Eisenhauer did not want many troops to die that day, but he knew that they would.  But his intent was to win the battle, not to lose troops.  Of course it would be a very different thing if Eisenhauer actually wanted to try to have as many troops die as possible, and thought that sending them to Normandy would do that.  What we are trying to accomplish is typically what gives us the culpability. 

Of course this can have significant impact on the culpability of certain business behaviors as well.  I may be trying to get the best price I can for my clients.  In the meantime I may make my supplier suffer by losing money, but that is not my intent– my intent was to help my customer.  So obviously there are some serious reprecussions of the principle of double effect for business activities.

Andy Gustafson