In contrast to unintended consequences, intended acts are always within our control, subjects of our free will and choice. Because we can always choo… - Neil Gorsuch
" "In contrast to unintended consequences, intended acts are always within our control, subjects of our free will and choice. Because we can always choose to refrain from doing intentional harm to others- because our purposeful actions are within our control- our intentional choices necessarily reveal more about our character and individuality than any unintended side effect ever can. To disregard whether or not an act is intended would be, thus, in a very real way to disregard the role of free will in the world- leaving, for example, those who fail to assist charities that feed the hungry open to censure and penalties as those who would starve such persons.
Precisely to avoid such acts of injustice in implicit recognition of commonsense (nontheologic) moral power of the double effect insight, secular American criminal law has long calibrated different levels of responsibility and punishment based on different levels of mens rea. The purposeful killer is considered for lethal injection while the individual who kills in self-defense, foreseeing death as a consequence but intending only to stop the aggression, may receive no punishment at all. The driver who speeds with reckless disregard for the consequences to others but without any intent to harm the darting child may receive jail time but is often treated far differently from the depraved killer who sets out witha purposeful plan to murder the child. The one who disregards the hungry and homeless may not command respect and admiration, but he or she is not subjected to the same penalties as one who deliberately harms such persons.
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About Neil Gorsuch
Neil McGill Gorsuch (August 29, 1967) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Gorsuch is a proponent of textualism in statutory interpretation, originalism in interpreting the U.S. Constitution, and is an advocate of natural law philosophy.
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Neil McGill Gorsuch
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Neil M. Gorsuch
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Courage has been essential to the rule of law in this country from the beginning. The Declaration of Independence itself was, at heart, a complaint that the king had denied colonists the rule of law. As justification for their rebellion, colonists cited the fact that the king had withheld assent to duly enacted legislation, refused trial by jury, and prevented colonists from playing a significant role in their own governance. About half of the fifty-six colonists who signed the Declaration were lawyers. They quite literally put their lives on the line to secure a representative government and one of just laws: By signing the declaration, they became marked men who faced certain death if their cause failed.
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In fact, the insight of the double effect doctrine is not remotely theologic. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, himself a frequent utilitarian critic of relying on intent, observed, "even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked." Of course, the question remains why should we, as a secular matter, care more about consequences that are intended versus those that are not? What wisdom, if any, lies behind this distinction? Justice Holmes' homespun illustration suggests the beginnings of an explanation. To kick a dog intentionally- to choose to hurt the animal- says something about the kicker, his or her way of interacting with animals and, perhaps, human beings- in short, it tells us at least something about the kicker's character and beliefs, about who the kicker is. By contrast, as Holmes seemed to recognize, watching a person trip over the dog tells us far less about who that person is or about the person's character or beliefs.
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