 On Foot’s view, we are generally not permitted to do something to someone that would interfere with someone’s negative rights, for example, we may not steal someone’s property; yet we may not be required to actively secure their possession of it, that is, we may allow them to lose their property. Foot thereby defends a principle that draws a moral distinction between doing and allowing; she also defends a version of the doctrine of double effect, which states that it is sometimes permissible to bring about a result that one foresees as a consequence of one’s action but does not intend that it would be impermissible to aim at either as a means or an end (1985 [MD 91]).  Foot believes that this principle is necessary because the principle of doing and allowing does not cover some morally significant distinctions. For example, consider a case in which we possess a certain drug, but only enough to either cure one person suffering from a fatal condition, or to save five others who are suffering from a milder, though still fatal case of the same illness. In such a circumstance, we can permissibly give the drug to the five who are suffering from the milder form of the disease. If we could save all six, we would surely do so. Clearly, we do not intend the death of the one, though we foresee it as a consequence of our actions. On the other hand, it is not permissible to withhold a live-saving drug from one to use his organs to save the lives of the five others after he dies. In this case, the death of the one is an essential means to the achievement of the end and so his death is strictly intended. Although in such a case I would be allowing someone to die rather than perpetrating a killing by my own agency, what I do is impermissible.  Only the doctrine of double effect captures the distinction between these cases, on Foot’s view. Yet the doctrine of double effect cannot stand on its own, according to Foot; we need both the principle of double effect and the principle of doing and allowing. After all, we can sometimes impermissibly initiate harm with indirect intention.  She gives the example of wicked merchants who knowingly sell poisoned oil: their intention is not to harm their customers, but only to turn a profit, yet they are clearly initiating a harmful causal sequence.