The Principle of Proportionality, Rights Theory and the Double Effect Doctrine

Abstract

This chapter aims to state which, if any, is the connection between the legal principle of reasonableness and the moral principle of double effect, taking into account that they share an analogous purpose and that the actions which they refer to are also similar in structure. While the former purports to grant rights the latter purports to grant human goods that, in both cases, are taken to be universal and absolute. Actions regulated through the double effect principle and the principle of reasonableness share a common structure; that is, actions with a direct end and a foreseen but not directly willed effect. The second purpose is to argue that while the double effect principle deals with its major problem (respecting the absolute nature of human goods) in a quite satisfactory way, some interpretations of the legal principle of reasonableness fail to guarantee the absolute nature of rights.