A Defence of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing
Fiona Woollard
Abstract
The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing states that doing harm is harder to
justify than merely allowing harm.
I defend the Doctrine of Doing and
Allowing by arguing that this doctrine is necessary if anything is to genuinely
belong to us. I do this using the notion of imposition. By exploring the
connections between doing, allowing and imposing, I show that the Doctrine
of Doing and Allowing is a principle that protects us against harmful
imposition: against the actions or needs of another intruding on what is
properly ours. This is just the kind of protection that is needed for genuine
possession.
A thing does not genuinely belong to a person unless he has a
special say over it. This requires protection from the actions and demands of
others.
Many people think that there is a morally significant difference between
doing harm and merely allowing harm. Doing harm is harder to justify than
merely allowing harm. I will refer to this claim as the Doctrine of Doing and
Allowing. Commonsense morality seems to endorse the Doctrine of Doing
and Allowing. Indeed, rejection of this Doctrine would apparently lead to
radically different moral requirements. Yet many philosophers have argued
against it.1
I defend the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing by arguing that this
doctrine is necessary if anything is to genuinely belong to anyone. Since at
least one thing genuinely belongs to each person (that person’s body), it
follows that morality should incorporate some version of the Doctrine of
Doing and Allowing.
I will argue that the Doctrine is necessary if anything is to genuinely
belong to us by using the notion of imposition. I begin by explaining the
1
Prominent examples include Jonathan Bennett, Michael Tooley and James Rachels.
1
notion of imposition, the doing/allowing distinction and the connections
between doing, allowing and imposing. I will show that viewing the Doctrine
of Doing and Allowing in terms of imposition reveals that this doctrine is
necessary if anything is to genuinely belong to us.
For something to
genuinely belong to a person, he must have a special say over it. He requires
protection against imposition. This is exactly the kind of protection offered
by the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. So if we are to accept, as I think we
must, that some things do genuinely belong to us, we must accept the
Doctrine of Doing and Allowing.
Imposing on Another and the Doing/Allowing Distinction
The notion of imposition is a fairly familiar one. Consider the almost
obligatory response to an unexpected invitation to someone’s house: “Oh, I
would not want to impose!” Even if we fully intend to accept the invitation,
we pay lip service to the ideal of non-imposition. Additionally, there seems
to be a connection between the doing/allowing distinction and differences in
the structure of imposition. In doing harm, the agent imposes on the victim. In
contrast, allowing harm need not involve the agent imposing on the victim.
On the contrary, any requirement for the agent to prevent harm would
involve the agent’s being imposed on for the sake of the potential victim.2
Imposition involves one person intruding upon the proper sphere of
another.
This can happen in two different ways.
First one person’s
behaviour may intrude into the sphere of another, bringing about adverse
effects. I will call this type of imposition causal imposition. Alternatively, one
person may impose upon another by placing demands on him. In this case, it
is the imposer’s needs, not his behaviour, that intrude upon the other. The
other is required to leave his legitimate concerns and respond to the
imposer’s needs. I will call this type of imposition normative imposition. Our
hesitant houseguest fears both types of imposition: he might causally impose
2
See Kamm (1996), p. 25.
2
on his hosts by using up their food; he might normatively impose on them if
they are required to cook for him.
So we do have an intuitive understanding of imposition and its
connection to the doing/allowing distinction, but it is not yet clear which
ways of affecting or placing requirements on another involve intruding on the
other in this objectionable way.
I aim to give an account of the
doing/allowing distinction that permits a clearer understanding of the notion
of imposition and its connection to the distinction between doing and
allowing. I hope to make sense of the thought that some ways of affecting
others or of placing requirements on others involve intruding on them.
I will illustrate my account of the doing/allowing distinction using
four cases. In each of these cases, Bob has been bitten by a snake and will die
unless he goes to hospital immediately to receive the anti-venom:
Push: A boulder is in the middle of the road, blocking Bob’s
path. Bob pushes the boulder out of the way. Unfortunately,
Victor is asleep in the boulder’s path. The boulder rolls down
the slope, hitting Victor and crushing him to death.3
Non-Interpose: This time the boulder is already rolling
towards Victor. Bob could drive his car into the boulder’s
path, bringing it to a halt. However, doing so would delay
him so he would not reach the hospital in time. He does not
drive into the boulder’s path and the boulder hits Victor.
Drive-Away (BC): Again the boulder is rolling towards Victor.
This time Bob’s car is parked in the boulder’s path. Anxious
to get to hospital, Bob drives it out of the boulder’s path. The
boulder hits Victor.
3
These cases are inspired by Jonathan Bennett’s Push and Stayback. See Bennett (1995), p. 67.
3
Drive-Away (VC): This time it is Victor’s car that is parked in
the boulder’s path. With no other transport available, Bob
takes the car and drives it out of the boulder’s path. The
boulder hits Victor.
Push is undeniably a case of doing harm, while Non-Interpose is
undeniably a case of merely allowing harm. The two Drive-Away cases are
more controversial, but I think Bob merely allows harm in Drive-Away (BC)
but does harm in Drive-Away (VC).
According to my account, whether an agent does harm or merely
allows it turns upon the nature of the sequence of facts through which he is
relevant to the harm in question.
For an agent to count as doing harm, we
need an unbroken sequence leading from the agent to the harm in question.
Facts of a certain kind will break the sequence between agent and harm, so
the harm does not count as something the agent has done.
What kinds of facts break the sequence between agent and harm? My
answer comes in two parts. First, I identify what I call substantial facts.
Substantial facts involve some change or addition to the world. One way a
fact can be substantial is by being positive — a fact that tells us that
something is the case, rather than that something is not the case. 4 However,
a fact can be substantial in other ways. For example, active facts about an
agent’s conduct are substantial.5
In Push, when Bob pushed the boulder towards Victor, there was a
sequence of positive – and thus substantial - facts leading from Bob to Victor’s
injuries: Bob pushes; boulder rolls towards Victor; boulder hits Victor; Victor
is hurt. We have a case of doing harm. In Non-Interpose, when Bob refused
‘It is dry’ seems to be a positive fact. I can accept this. Note that ‘it is not raining’ may be
true while ‘it is dry’ is false; it may be snowing.
5 For a more detailed account of the positive/negative distinction and the active/passive
distinction see Bennett (1995) and Woollard (2008). I also argue in Woollard (2008) that
particularly unexpected facts such as the fact that there was no oxygen present are
substantial. These facts are substantial if and only if they contradict our normal
presuppositions, the shared expectations which go without saying when we describe or
reason about a situation. For the sake of simplicity, I do not discuss this point in this paper.
4
4
to move his car into the path of the boulder, Bob was only relevant to Victor’s
injuries through inaction. An agent will count as merely allowing a harm if
he is only relevant to that harm through some non-substantial fact about his
conduct (through not doing something). In such cases there is no substantial
sequence connecting the agent and the harm, so the agent counts as merely
allowing harm.
What about when an agent does something that leads to the absence of
a condition that would have prevented the harm? We see this in both the
Drive-Away cases: Bob is relevant to Victor’s injuries because he removes the
car that would have prevented the boulder from hitting Victor. Facts about
the absence of halting conditions are (usually) non-substantial facts. In some
cases, like Drive-Away (BC), the removal of a halting condition counts as
merely allowing harm. In other cases, like Drive-Away (VC), it counts as
doing harm. I suggest that the best way of explaining our classifications is to
look at the relationship between the agent, the victim and the non-substantial
fact: is it a fact about the agent’s own resources or about something that
belongs to the victim? Non-substantial facts about the agent’s behaviour or
his resources break the sequence connecting the agent to the harm, so that the
agent counts as merely allowing harm. Non-substantial facts about resources
belonging to the victim do not break the sequence connecting the agent to
harm, so the agent still counts as doing harm.
In Drive-Away (BC), when Bob moved his car out of the path of the
boulder, Bob was only relevant to Victor’s injuries through a non-substantial
fact about Bob’s own resources: Bob’s car was not in the boulder’s path. Bob
prevented his own car from preventing the harm to Victor. The sequence
leading from Bob’s behaviour to the harm is broken by this non-substantial
fact. Bob merely allows harm.
In Drive-Away (VC), when Bob moved Victor’s car out of the path of
the boulder, he was relevant through a non-substantial fact about something
that belonged to Victor. Bob prevented Victor’s own car from protecting
Victor. Bob does harm.
5
Thus according to my account:
An agent counts as doing (bringing about) an outcome if and only if
there is a complete, unbroken sequence leading from his behaviour
to the outcome.
An agent counts as allowing an outcome if and only if he is relevant
to that outcome but there is no complete, unbroken sequence
leading from his behaviour to the outcome.
The sequence between agent and outcome will be broken by nonsubstantial facts about the agent’s own behaviour or resources.
The sequence will not be broken by non-substantial facts about
resources belonging to the victim.6
This account of the doing/allowing distinction suggests a way of
understanding the notion of imposition that (a) preserves the connection
between doing, allowing and imposing and (b) sheds light on the idea that
imposition involves intrusion into the proper sphere of another.
If an agent allows harm, there is a sense in which he only affects things
that belong to him. Some things do happen to others that would not have
happened if he had acted differently. Nonetheless there is no substantial link
between his behaviour and these effects. The chains of substantial facts stop
For the sake of simplicity, I have not discussed naturally occurring barriers or barriers
provided by a third party. To apply my account to these cases, in “resources belonging to the
victim” I include any previously unclaimed natural resources that the victim is obviously
using and any resources belonging to a third party that the third party intends the victim to
use. In “resources belonging to the agent”, I include any unclaimed natural resources or any
resources belonging to a third party that are not in use by the victim or intended by the
provider for use by the victim. If the provider intends either victim or agent to use a
resource, then relative to the situation, he bestows temporary ownership on that person. If
neither agent nor victim has temporary ownership, the resource is treated as an unclaimed
natural resource. Assuming that any relevant “fair share” constraints are met, temporary
possession of previously unclaimed natural resources can be claimed by making use of those
resources. For an overview of the discussion on appropriation of natural resources, see
Vallentyne (2006), Section 2. For a comment on how this modified account fits with my
defence of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing see footnote 15.
6
6
before they reach out beyond his sphere of possession. In contrast, when an
agent does harm, the chains of substantial facts reach into the sphere of the
victim. There is a chain of substantial facts leading from his behaviour to an
unwanted affect on something that belongs to the victim.
This suggests the following account of causal imposition: an agent
causally imposes upon a victim if and only if there is a chain of substantial facts
leading from the agent’s behaviour to an effect on the victim. The agent has
not causally imposed on the victim if the chain is broken by a non-substantial
fact before it affects the victim or his belongings.
Thus both Push and Drive-Away (VC) involve Bob causally imposing
on Victor. In Push, Bob pushes the boulder, which rolls down the slope over
Victor. There is a sequence of substantial facts leading from Bob’s conduct to
the harm to Victor. In Drive-Away (VC), Bob moves Victor’s car out of the
path of the boulder, so that the boulder is free to continue towards Victor.
There is a sequence of substantial facts leading from Bob’s conduct to a nonsubstantial fact about something that belongs to Victor. Both cases involve
Bob’s behaviour moving into Victor’s sphere: a sequence of positive,
substantial facts links Bob’s behaviour to an unwanted effect on Victor’s body
or resources.
In contrast, Non-Interpose and Drive-Away (BC) represent cases
where Bob is relevant to the harm to Victor without imposing on Victor. The
chain leading from the Bob’s behaviour to the harm to Victor is broken by a
non-substantial fact before it reaches Victor’s sphere, so Bob’s behaviour does
not “move into” Victor’s sphere. In Non-Interpose, the boulder is hurtling
towards Victor and Bob fails to move his car and block the boulder’s path.
All the relevant facts about Bob are non-substantial.
In Drive-Away (BC),
Bob moves his car out of the path of the boulder, allowing the boulder to
continue towards Victor. He is relevant to the harm to Victor through a
substantial fact about his behaviour (that he moved the car), but the influence
of this action stops before it leaves Bob’s sphere. He only substantially affects
the things that belong to him. His behaviour is only relevant to Victor’s
7
injuries because of a non-substantial fact about his own resources (that his car
is not in the boulder’s path) so the chain leading from his behaviour is broken
by this non-substantial fact before it intrudes into the sphere of things that
belong to Victor.
My account of the doing/allowing distinction also suggests a coherent
understanding of normative imposition.
In normative imposition, the
patient’s needs intrude into the sphere of the agent. Requirements are placed
upon the agent or his resources for the sake of the patient. The agent’s body
and resources are put at the use of another. According to my account, when
an agent allows harm he is relevant to the harm through his failure to
perform an action or through a non-substantial fact about his own resources.
Thus constraints against allowing harm forbid him from being relevant to
harm through a non-substantial fact about his behaviour or his belongings.
They require him to ensure the contrary substantial fact holds instead.
Ensuring that a substantial fact about one’s body or belongings is true for the
sake of another person amounts to putting one’s resources at another’s use. It
makes sense to see this as a normative imposition: an intrusion of the needs of
others into one’s sphere.
This gives us the following account of imposition:
An agent is normatively imposed on by a victim when he is
required to perform some action or to refrain from changing some
substantial fact about his resources for the sake of another.
A victim is causally imposed on by an agent when there is a chain
of substantial facts from the agent’s action leading to changes in
what belonged to the victim.
If we understand imposition in this way, then the doing/allowing
distinction matches a difference in the structure of imposition: (a) in doing
harm the agent causally imposes on the victim, but in allowing harm the
8
agent does not causally impose on the victim; (b) constraints against allowing
harm normatively impose upon the agent whereas constraints against doing
harm may not normatively impose upon the agent. 7
When we see the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing in the light of the
connection between doing, allowing and imposing, it is revealed as a
principle protecting us from harmful imposition. According to the Doctrine
of Doing and Allowing, doing harm is ordinarily forbidden even if all
alternatives are costly, whereas allowing harm is ordinarily permissible if all
alternatives are costly. As noted, when an agent does harm, he (causally)
imposes on his victim. When an agent is forbidden from allowing harm he is
(normatively) imposed on by the potential victim. Thus, the Doctrine of
Doing and Allowing protects all persons against both harmful causal
imposition and harmful normative imposition: agents are not permitted to
causally impose on patients in a harmful way (doing harm is forbidden);
patients cannot normatively impose upon agents in a harmful way (allowing
harm is permissible).
Possession and Constraints against Imposition
I will now use the above observations about doing and allowing and
imposing to defend the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. I will suggest that
the protection against imposition offered by this doctrine is necessary if
anything is to genuinely belong to anyone.
When I speak of something “belonging to” a person, I refer to
something that is similar, but not necessarily identical, to ownership.
Ownership is usually thought to involve transference rights, such as the right
to transfer ownership of the property by sale or gift. It is highly controversial
whether we have these transference rights over our bodies. Nonetheless, I
think that a person’s body does belong to him in a way that has some
affinities with ownership. To say that his body belongs to him is to say that it
Some allowings and some constraints against doing involve imposition. All such cases
require some extra feature of the situation that causes the imposition. Allowing harm or
being forbidden from doing harm does not in itself involve imposition.
7
9
is his in some normatively significant sense: it is not just the body that he is
associated with, or that he happens to have control of at the moment — it is
his body. To avoid the controversies about rights of transfer I use the term
“possession” rather than “ownership”.8
The idea that the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing should be linked to
the necessary conditions for genuine possession is not new.9 Warren Quinn
argues that the constraint against doing harm is necessary to recognise the
fact that the potential victim’s body and mind belong to him. If morality does
not include such a constraint, then it treats the victim’s body and mind as
common property. At the heart of Quinn’s argument is the claim that if
something is to genuinely belong to a person (whether this thing is his own
body or some other resource) he must have a special say over what happens to
it:
An object does not truly belong to [a person] if he may have it and
use it, and others may not take it from him, only as long as his
keeping it would be better for him than his losing it would be for
them.10
Without the constraint against doing harm, Quinn claims, harm may
be done to a person whenever this is necessary to prevent greater harm
occurring to others. If this is so, then that person’s body does not truly belong
to him.
Like Quinn, I think that a constraint against doing harm is needed if a
person’s body is to genuinely belong to him. Without restrictions on what
may be done to our bodies, those bodies belong to us in name only. Genuine
possession, like genuine ownership, requires normative protection that
privileges the possessor over others. If other people are just as free to drive a
I recognise that “possession” is often used as a purely descriptive term as in “Possession is
nine-tenths of the law.” I am not using it in this way.
9 See also Cohen (1995), p. 226-228
10 Quinn (1989), p. 372
8
10
car as I am, if they are permitted take it away or take it apart whenever they
need to, it is not really my car. It is a commonly owned car. The same thing
holds of the non-transferable possession of my body.
If this body is to
genuinely belong to me, rather than being a commonly owned resource, I
need normative protection that gives me a special say over what happens to
this body.11
I want to build on Quinn’s suggestion by showing that for our bodies
and other resources to genuinely belong to us we need exactly the type of
normative protection offered by the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. I will
show that genuine possession requires protection against both causal and
normative imposition.
Possession, at least possession by competent adults, requires a special
say over the object in question. However, possession does not require that
what happens to the object be up to the possessor: my possession of my body
is not infringed if I get soaked through by a sudden rainstorm. If my soaking
is an unpreventable act of nature, then there is no one who could have acted
impermissibly. So clearly possession cannot give us normative protection
against unwanted but unpreventable acts of nature. It makes no sense to
claim that it is impermissible that I should suffer such effects. Moreover, my
authority over my body would not be infringed even if it had been within
some agent’s power to prevent my soaking.
My special say over what
happens to my body does not mean that everyone else has to run around
making sure that nothing unfortunate happens to my body.
Genuine possession requires normative protection against some effects
on my belongings. These must be the effects of acts of moral agents otherwise
the idea of normative protection makes no sense. But not all ways that my
belongings can be affected as a consequence of a moral agent’s behaviour
By normative protection, I mean something like a rule that it is prima facie impermissible for
others to behave in certain ways. Something can still genuinely belong to me even if others
do in fact take it from me. This just means that my ownership rights have been infringed.
But if others are permitted to take something from me whenever this is for the best, if there is
no normative restriction that counts my needs for more than theirs, then I do not own the
object in the first place. See Kamm on inviolability, (Kamm 2007, p.28)
11
11
infringe the rights of possession. Which effects on my belonging infringe the
rights of possession? Exactly those effects resulting from causal imposition!
In causal imposition, the activity of another agent moves into the sphere of
the victim. This is just the kind of effect on a person’s possessions that takes
away his proper say over what happens to what is his. Possession should
protect what belongs to us from the activity of others, making it illegitimate
for their behaviour to substantially affect it without our consent.
Protection against unwanted effects alone is not enough to give an
agent true possession of his body. If an agent is required to sacrifice himself
whenever this would be for the greater good, then he does not really have a
special say over what happens to his body.
12
Something does not truly
belong to a person if he is required to use it in a particular way or required to
let others use it whenever doing so would make the world better. Genuine
possession needs protection against requirements to give others the use of
one’s possessions as well as protection against unwanted effects on one’s
possessions. I suggest that true possession needs protection against just the
kind of requirements that involve normative imposition.
In normative
imposition, the needs of another person intrude into the agent’s sphere. The
agent is required to perform some action or to refrain from changing some
substantial fact about his resources for the sake of another. This involves
giving the use of his body or resources to others. This infringes the rights that
the agent should have over what is his.13
When a person is imposed upon (either normatively or causally) he
loses his say over what is his.14
Causal imposition involves the imposer’s
Frances Kamm points this out in her criticism of Quinn. Kamm (2007), p. 82
I use the term “infringe” rather than “violate” because in some cases it may be justifiable to
over-ride an agent’s rights over what is his. In these cases the rights are infringed but not
violated. See Judith Jarvis Thomson (1977).
14 I’ve sometimes put my argument in terms of having a say. For autonomous agents,
possession involves having a say. However, the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing may apply
to harm to other creatures, like newborn babies and animals, which are not capable of
exercising this kind of authority. If this is so, my argument will produce strong constraints
against doing harm to such a creature if and only if we can find a non-authority based notion
of possession under which the creature’s bodies belongs to it. Nonetheless, it will still be true
that doing harm to such creatures (and indeed bringing about bad outcomes that do not harm
12
13
12
behaviour intruding into the person’s sphere substantially affecting what
belongs to the person against his will. Normative imposition involves the
imposer’s needs intruding into the person’s sphere, requiring him to put
himself or his body at the imposer’s use.
Genuine possession requires
normative protection against both types of imposition. As shown earlier, this
is just the protection provided by the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. Thus
the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing is just the principle required to protect a
person’s special say over what belongs to him. 15
The Back-a-Step Objection
Suppose I have shown that genuine possession requires protection against
imposition and that there is a connection between doing, allowing and
imposing. It could be objected that I have merely pushed the problem of
justifying the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing back a step. Why should my
say over what belongs to me be infringed by imposition but not by other
unwanted changes to or requirements about what belongs to me? It is not
enough to say that genuine possession involves protection against imposition.
any individual) is worse than merely allowing harm. Requirements to prevent bad outcomes
always involve an autonomous moral agent who is capable of exercising authority. I argue
that the authority of possession restricts requirements to prevent bad outcomes. So it follows
from my argument that merely allowing bad accounts must be ordinarily permissible. I
assume that the badness of the outcome provides reason against countenancing the outcome.
This reason will be defeated by the protection against normative imposition when it comes to
merely allowing the bad outcome, but not when it comes to bringing the bad outcome about.
Bringing about the bad outcome will be wrong, but merely allowing it will not generally be
wrong. I thank Brad Hooker, Ralph Wedgewood and Thomas Hurka for helpful points on
this issue.
15 In footnote 6, I note that my account of the doing/allowing distinction is slightly simplified.
Does my defence still stand given the more complex account? It does. First, I have suggested
that it makes sense to see naturally occurring barriers and barriers provided by third parties
as “belonging to” either agent or victim under certain circumstances. I think our
classifications of cases involving naturally occurring or third party barriers results from our
recognition of the temporary claims we can make over such resources. While I use a stone,
that stone belongs to me. Second, these more complex cases still match up with protection of
a person’s say over what most clearly belongs to him. Removing a naturally occurring barrier
or a barrier belonging to a third party and not intended for use by the victim will not involve
interfering with what belongs to the victim, so will not be subject to the strong constraint
against doing harm. Removing a barrier that was either provided by another agent to
prevent the barrier or is naturally occurring and in use to prevent the outcome will not
involve the agent using only what is his, so will not be subject to the permission to allow
harm.
13
We need to explain why we should have possession over what belongs to us
rather than possession*, a different set of special rights that are neutral
between doing and allowing.16 To answer this, I will look at the first and
central case of possession: our possession of our bodies. I will argue that our
relationship to our bodies requires possession and not possession*.
Our
possession of our bodies should serve as the model for other less fundamental
types of possession.
My body is specially associated with me in two distinct ways. First,
effects on my body can lead to, or even constitute, effects on my interests: it is
bad for me when my body is harmed. Second, my body is the thing with
which I do things. It has an intimate connection with my agency. Each of
these associations calls for distinctive type of protection. The connection
between effects on my body and effects on my interests calls for protection
against harmful effects on my body. It suggests it should be impermissible
for other’s behaviour to have unwelcome effects on my body.
It calls for a
constraint against causal imposition. The connection between my body and
my agency means that I require freedom to use my body: it should be at my
use and not at the use of others. So my relationship with my body also calls
for protection against normative imposition.
Possession* will not be able to maintain this balance between causal
and normative imposition. Possession* must treat doing harm and allowing
harm equally. It will either neglect freedom of use (by including stringent
protection against adverse affects which forbid us from allowing harm to
others) or to neglect protection from the actions of others (by including very
high freedom of use so that we are permitted to do harm to others). Genuine
possession, which truly recognises our relationship to our bodies, requires
protection against both normative and causal imposition.
It requires the
Doctrine of Doing and Allowing.
I’ve based this possible objection on Jonathan Bennett’s use of “dual rights” to criticise
Philippa Foot’s defence of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing on the basis that negative
rights are stronger than positive rights. See Bennett (1995), p. 81; Foot (1967).
16
14
Conclusion
The above arguments give a conditional justification for the Doctrine of Doing
and Allowing. If our possession of what is ours should be recognised, if
things do genuinely belong to us, then morality should incorporate some
variation of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. However, I think that the
claim that nothing genuinely belongs to us is highly implausible. For we
seem to have at least one clear case of genuine possession:
a person’s
possession of his body. This is enough to justify at least some version of the
Doctrine of Doing and Allowing.
F.Woollard@sheffield.ac.uk
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