I don't think the best versions of DDE would have that implication: gratuitous intended harm should come out worst of all, as I understand the view. Gratuitous harming in general should probably count as "intending" (not merely "foreseeing") harm. And the loss of any benefit makes it impossible to justify causing any harm whatsoever, whe…
I don't think the best versions of DDE would have that implication: gratuitous intended harm should come out worst of all, as I understand the view. Gratuitous harming in general should probably count as "intending" (not merely "foreseeing") harm. And the loss of any benefit makes it impossible to justify causing any harm whatsoever, whether intended or merely foreseen.
But the view does seem to violate Pareto: we can imagine cases where collaterally harming S comes out as permissible, but a Pareto-superior alternative that only does half the harm to S, but does it as a means, is not permissible. (Maybe some would just make special exceptions to permit the means-harm in such cases? I imagine Kamm must discuss this somewhere.)
I was thinking of the "unnecessary" testing as something that was an unavoidable part of the process (e.g. mandated by government, crucial for marketing purposes) but not inherent to the stated goal (ensuring that the product is safe).
But then they're back to harming the animals *as a means* (to getting government approval, or whatever). The fact that the intermediate goal is "not inherent to the stated goal" doesn't preclude the agent's harmful involvement of their victims from being instrumental and hence "intended" in the relevant sense.
Oh, I very much agree with your understanding of the morally relevant feature here; I'm drawing my analogy upon the concept that seems to be invoked by deontologists in the applied contexts where I encounter DDE.
In the vegan advocacy context, DDE is typically invoked in defense of animal deaths in plant agriculture, which are clearly instrumental but claimed to be "not inherent" because some idealized process of producing plant foods need not involve any such harm to sentients. I don't see how an instrumental consideration like economic necessity would be taken to differ deontically from an instrumental consideration like legal requirement. If poisoning of rodents in vegetable production isn't "inherent" to vegetable production, then animal testing to meet scientifically useless government demands shouldn't count as "inherent" to producing safe cosmetics, either.
Returning to my original claim, there does seem to be a kind of animal testing that would seem to fit this deontic concept of "inherent" (scientifically necessary to establish safety for humans), and the claim that such testing is worse than mandated but useless testing, is absurd.
I don't think the best versions of DDE would have that implication: gratuitous intended harm should come out worst of all, as I understand the view. Gratuitous harming in general should probably count as "intending" (not merely "foreseeing") harm. And the loss of any benefit makes it impossible to justify causing any harm whatsoever, whether intended or merely foreseen.
But the view does seem to violate Pareto: we can imagine cases where collaterally harming S comes out as permissible, but a Pareto-superior alternative that only does half the harm to S, but does it as a means, is not permissible. (Maybe some would just make special exceptions to permit the means-harm in such cases? I imagine Kamm must discuss this somewhere.)
I was thinking of the "unnecessary" testing as something that was an unavoidable part of the process (e.g. mandated by government, crucial for marketing purposes) but not inherent to the stated goal (ensuring that the product is safe).
But then they're back to harming the animals *as a means* (to getting government approval, or whatever). The fact that the intermediate goal is "not inherent to the stated goal" doesn't preclude the agent's harmful involvement of their victims from being instrumental and hence "intended" in the relevant sense.
Oh, I very much agree with your understanding of the morally relevant feature here; I'm drawing my analogy upon the concept that seems to be invoked by deontologists in the applied contexts where I encounter DDE.
In the vegan advocacy context, DDE is typically invoked in defense of animal deaths in plant agriculture, which are clearly instrumental but claimed to be "not inherent" because some idealized process of producing plant foods need not involve any such harm to sentients. I don't see how an instrumental consideration like economic necessity would be taken to differ deontically from an instrumental consideration like legal requirement. If poisoning of rodents in vegetable production isn't "inherent" to vegetable production, then animal testing to meet scientifically useless government demands shouldn't count as "inherent" to producing safe cosmetics, either.
Returning to my original claim, there does seem to be a kind of animal testing that would seem to fit this deontic concept of "inherent" (scientifically necessary to establish safety for humans), and the claim that such testing is worse than mandated but useless testing, is absurd.