Posted by Eugene Volokh:
The Innocent and the Guilty:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2005_05_22-2005_05_28.shtml#1117062960
[1]Slate's Human Nature says, under the subhead "Bush's hypocrisy on
stem cells and the death penalty":
President Bush said he would veto [legislation to expand federal
funding of human embryonic stem-cell research] because it "violates
the clear standard I set four years ago. This bill would take us
across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the
ongoing destruction of emerging human life."
The standard Bush set four years ago and repeated last week is that
we shouldn't take one life -- even an embryonic life -- in order to
save others. Cost-benefit analysis is never sufficient grounds for
the premeditated killing of civilians -- except when it comes to
the death penalty. When the discussion shifts from embryos to
murderers, Bush and his spokesmen routinely argue that killing is
justified not because murderers deserve it, but because it's moral
to take one life in order to save others. He doesn't say that
Person A should be executed because Person A is a danger to
society. He says that Person A should be executed because the
execution will deter Person B from killing Person C.
Before Bush vetoes the stem-cell bill, maybe he should explain how
his comments about stem cells in the left column below square with
his comments about capital punishment in the right column [giving
examples].
Well, that's interesting -- let's have a look at [2]a speech that
Slate quotes as an example of the President's comments on capital
punishment:
"I happen to believe that the death penalty, when properly applied,
saves lives of others. And so I'm comfortable with my beliefs that
there's no contradiction between the two."
Here's a funny thing: If we start the quote a few sentences before,
here's what we get (emphasis added):
Q Can you please talk about a little bit about your view of the
death penalty and how that fits into your vision of a culture of
life?
THE PRESIDENT: Sure. Thanks. I have been supportive of the death
penalty, both as governor and President. And the difference between
the case of Terry Schiavo and the case of a convicted killer is the
difference between guilt and innocence. And I happen to believe
that the death penalty, when properly applied, saves lives of
others. And so I'm comfortable with my beliefs that there's no
contradiction between the two.
Say, isn't that President Bush "explain[ing] how his comments about
stem cells . . . square with his comments about capital punishment"?
Maybe you aren't persuaded by it, but doesn't it absolve him of the
charges of "hypocrisy" (though not of the charges of error, if you
think he's mistaken)? And might it have been worthwhile to quote that
sentence as well as the two afterwards, if one's complaint about the
President is that he's supposedly not reconciling his supposedly
inconsistent views?
Or, if you'd like, here are Scott McClellan's comments on [3]April 4,
2005:
Q Scott, you mentioned the culture of life. When Pope John Paul II
wrote about the culture of life in 1995, he described it also in
terms of the death penalty, not just abortion and euthanasia. He
said that in these modern times, cases where the death penalty is
warranted are rare, if not nonexistent. Now, knowing that the
president fully supports the death penalty, use of the death
penalty, does he see it as a contradiction to use that phrase,
"culture of life," and still support the death penalty, which the
pope expressed . . . .
MR. MCCLELLAN: No. Let's separate out -- I mean because I spoke
about this issue last week and why the president's view is the way
it is, and that's because we're talking about the difference
between innocent life and someone who is guilty of horrific crimes.
So why don't President Bush and his spokespeople mention this every
time they discuss the death penalty? Because it's such a commonplace
in our death penalty debate that it goes without saying. Virtually
every American -- including, I'd wager, the author of the Human Nature
column -- is well aware that this is a key argument of those who
support the death penalty but not (say) infanticide or abortion. A
public speaker may reasonably conclude that there's no reason to
repeat such a well-understood proviso every time he makes an argument.
One can of course disagree with this position, and conclude that
cost-benefit-based killings are never proper, even as to the guilty --
or that they're always proper, even as to the innocent. But one should
recognize that most people (not all, I suppose, but most) who talk the
talk of deterrence as to the death penalty are implicitly making the
guilty-innocent distinction. One can call them wrong, if one thinks
the guilty-innocent distinction doesn't suffice to justify their
position. But don't call them hypocrites on the grounds that they have
supposedly failed to articulate a distinction, when this distinction
is widely understood to be implicit in most death penalty supporter's
arguments.
And certainly don't say that "Before Bush vetoes the stem-cell bill,
maybe he should explain how his comments about stem cells in the left
column below square with his comments about capital punishment in the
right column" when President Bush gave such an explanation in one of
the very statements that you quote in the right column, immediately
before the material that you quote -- and you failed to quote that
explanation.
References
1. http://slate.com/id/2119512/
2. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/04/20050414-4.html
3. http://canberra.usembassy.gov/hyper/2005/0404/epf101.htm
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