Jean-Pierre Gury
Teacher of moral theology: gave the principle of double effect the form, as a list of conditions, that is still taught.
Life
Jean-Pierre Gury (1801-1866) was a French Jesuit, a professor of moral theology at the seminary of Vals (Haute-Loire) for some thirty years. His textbook Compendium theologiae moralis (1850), clear and arranged in questions and conclusions, went through seventeen editions in his lifetime and trained generations of priests. In it he states the principle of double effect as a list of conditions, which medical ethics and moral philosophy still use to judge acts that have one good and one bad effect.
Main works
A Catholic moral theology manual that became a classic of casuistry.
A collection of cases of conscience applying the principles of the Compendium.
In his own words
« It is permitted to set a good or indifferent cause from which two effects immediately follow, one good and the other bad, if there is a grave reason and the agent's end is honest. »
Licet ponere causam bonam aut indifferentem ex qua immediate sequitur duplex effectus, unus bonus, alter vero malus, si adsit causa gravis, et finis agentis sit honestus.
« It is never lawful to do any evil, however slight, to bring about any good whatsoever. »
nunquam fas est malum, quantumvis leve, patrare ad bonum quodcumque procurandum
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceA Jesuit moral theologian: his whole casuistry rests on the God of Catholic doctrine.
Gury, Compendium theologiae moralis (1850)
Good and evil are fixed by natural and divine law, which binds every conscience.
Gury, Compendium theologiae moralis (1850)