The self-defining nature of intended actions can be illustrated by the case, developed earlier in this chapter, of the drivers who hit the child in t… - Neil Gorsuch
" "The self-defining nature of intended actions can be illustrated by the case, developed earlier in this chapter, of the drivers who hit the child in the street. In one instance, we considered the driver who comes upon a child darting into the street. The driver hits and kills the child by accident. In doing so, the driver indubitably effects an awful result- the consequences he brings about are terrible and, as a result, we may censure and punish the driver. But we may very well treat him differently from another driver who intentionally hunts down the child with her car. For this latter driver, we may say that no punishment is harsh enough. What undergirds the difference in our reaction to the two drivers? It is the difference in their self-definition, volition, choice. The hunting driver expresses herself to the world through her actions, defines who she is and what she believes, in a very different way than the accidental driver. Thus, what really illuminates the darting child hypothetical and ones like it are not arguments over causation but an assessment of human intentions.
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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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The consequences of the law’s focus on individuals rather than groups are anything but academic. Suppose an employer fires a woman for refusing his sexual advances. It’s no defense for the employer to note that, while he treated that individual woman worse than he would have treated a man, he gives preferential treatment to female employees overall. The employer is liable for treating this woman worse in part because of her sex. Nor is it a defense for an employer to say it discriminates against both men and women because of sex. This statute works to protect individuals of both sexes from discrimination, and does so equally. So an employer who fires a woman, Hannah, because she is insufficiently feminine and also fires a man, Bob, for being insufficiently masculine may treat men and women as groups more or less equally. But in both cases the employer fires an individual in part because of sex. Instead of avoiding Title VII exposure, this employer doubles it.
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In truth, the push and pull between national and local authorities that federalism allows has nothing to do with benefiting one party or another; it has more to do with the fact that no single government can always get it right. Protecting federalism means ensuring that when one government loses its way, another can help light the way back.
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