Pardon who? Hunter Biden case renews ethical debate over use and limits of peculiar presidential power

President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden stepping out of a bookstore in Nantucket, Mass. on Nov. 29, 2024. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images by Scott Davidson, West Virginia University The decision by President Joe Biden to pardon his son, Hunter, despite previously suggesting he would not do so, has reopened debate over the use of the presidential pardon. Hunter Biden will be spared potential jail time not simply over his convictions for gun and tax offenses, but any “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period Jan. 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.” During his first tenure in the White House, Donald Trump issued a total of 144 pardons. Following Biden’s move to pardon his son, Trump raised the issue of those convicted over involvement in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, raising expectations that he may use the pardon in their cases – something Trump has repeatedly promised to do. But should the pardon power be solely up to the president’s discretion? Or should there be restrictions on who can be granted a pardon? As a scholar of ethics and political philosophy, I find...