Humane Killing and the Ethics of the Secular: Regulating the Death Penalty, Euthanasia, and Animal Slaughter

Taking as the point of departure the 2008 death-penalty case of Baze v. Rees, but then stepping back into the nineteenth century in search for a deeper understanding, the research project and article narrate three acts of takings of life, which are sanctioned by the state and fashioned by law, and have stirred significant legal controversy and brought about legal reform: the death penalty, euthanasia, and animal slaughter.The ethics paradox that underlies all three cases separates the question of killing from the method of killing. Whereas the former is taken for granted (in the case of animals), is constitutionally permissible (as in the case of the death penalty), or in any event is no longer taken as a legal taboo (as in the case of physician-assisted suicide), the latter is placed under close scrutiny and monitored for any unnecessary imposition of pain and suffering on the helpless body. How has it come about that the ethics and practice of these methods of killing share so much in common, whereas the justifications for the killings themselves share nothing at all? I argue that humane killing is no oxymoron, and far from being a logical contradiction, it captures a deep and meaningful logic of modern law and ethics.