Contraception and double effect.

I argue that opposition to contraception is not made any less implausible by the application of the Doctrine of Double Effect, as for example in the case of the recent argument according to which double effect can be deployed to make the prescription of Combined Oral Contraceptives compatible with Catholic teachings. I argue that opposition to contraception is not made any less implausible by the application of the Doctrine of Double Effect, as for example in the case of the recent argument that double effect can be deployed to make the prescription of Combined Oral Contraceptives (COC) compatible with Catholic teachings (Casey & Salzman, forthcoming). The dialectic of this debate is common to many applications of double effect: a deontological rule which is – either in itself or because of its generality – implausible should be supposedly made less implausible by showing that – because of the Doctrine of Double Effect – the rule does not actually forbid as much as it was thought to forbid. Indeed, this is also historically the dialectic of Aquinas’ original introduction of praeter intentionem (which was later to be formalized into the Doctrine of Double Effect) to make the Commandment against killing less implausible: simplifying Aquinas’ point, the idea would be that if we recognise that the Commandment is against intentional killing and see that someone who kills in self-defence does not necessarily intend to kill (and also – would add the contemporary philosopher of