Author granted license
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
Document Type
Article Draft
Publication Date
1-10-1993
Abstract
The doctrine of double effect (DDE) and my suggested correlative, the doctrine of single effect (DSE), suggest that no significance should be given to either the lawful nature of the threat or the potentially beneficial side-effects of blackmail. Under DSE, the blackmailer violates deontological constraints if he threatens disclosure in an intent to obtain money or other advantage because, inter alia, were he to have alternative threats available he would threaten anyway. The nature of the threat is outside the intent of the blackmailer in the same way the killing of civilians is outside the intent of the strategic bomber. Since the blackmailer's end is harm, it is not redeemable by the possibility that some component of the means he used might be lawful. Like the terror bomber, the direct intent of the blackmailer is to do harm, and as with terror bombing, such intentional harm is impermissible regardless of its beneficial side-effects.
Recommended Citation
Wendy J. Gordon, Truth and Consequences: The Force of Blackmail's Central Case (Jan. 10, 1993) (unpublished manuscript).
Related Documents
Wendy J. Gordon, Truth and Consequences: The Force of Blackmail's Central Case 141 Univ. Pa. L. Rev. 1741 (1993), available at https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1986/.
Wendy J. Gordon, Truth and Consequences: The Force of Blackmail's Central Case (May 5, 1993) (unpublished manuscript), available at https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/gordon/65/.
Wendy J. Gordon, Truth and Consequences: The Force of Blackmail's Central Case (Jan. 11, 1993) (unpublished manuscript), available at https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/gordon/67/.
Wendy J. Gordon, Truth and Consequences: The Force of Blackmail's Central Case (Jan. 7, 1993) (unpublished manuscript), available at https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/gordon/66/.
Wendy J. Gordon, Truth and Consequences: The Force of Blackmail's Central Case (Jan. 4, 1993) (unpublished manuscript), available at https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/gordon/68.
Wendy J. Gordon, Truth and Consequences: The Force of Blackmail (Jan. 2, 1993) (unpublished outline), available at https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/gordon/76.
Wendy J. Gordon, Norms of Pride and Resistance: Psychology, Virtue, and the Blackmail Puzzle (Dec. 31, 1992) (unpublished outline), available at https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/gordon/75.
Wendy J. Gordon, Norms of Pride and Resistance: Psychology, Virtue, and the Blackmail Puzzle (Nov. 17, 1992) (unpublished outline), available at https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/gordon/74.
