A Sustained Attack on the Culture of Death

Last December, the Stanford Law Review published a pro-death penalty article by Cass Sunstein and Adrien Vermeule, with a response by Carol Steiker. Sunstein and Vermeule argued that even if capital punishment violates someone's right to life, it is still morally obligatory if through deterrence it would save more people than it kills. My colleague Eric Blumenson has just posted an article on SSRN outlining heretofore unanalyzed logical and moral problems with the Sunstein-Vermeule approach. Importantly, Blumenson's article is relevant not only to the Sunstein-Vermeule specific death penalty argument, but to the similar, lesser-evil logic behind post-9/11 proposals to "violate the human rights of some in the name of human rights for all." The article pointedly shows whats wrong with this thinking, and how radically life would change in a country that took the Sunstein-Vermeule rationale to heart.