With so little to gain politically from defending a convicted child rapist—and, one would think, plenty to lose—why would European politicians bother? The answer lies in Europe’s relationship to its artists, and the mythos of their genius. Simply put, sexual transgression, even to a criminal degree, has always been an accepted, even expected, quality of the continent’s most celebrated artists.

The French poet Charles Baudelaire frequented prostitutes so wantonly that he spent much of his time treating his syphilis and gonorrhea. His contemporary Arthur Rimbaud, was said to have offered a personal enemy a glass of milk spiked with his own semen. Things weren’t much different on the other side of the English channel. Oscar Wilde’s opposition to Britain’s draconian anti-homosexuality laws is justly celebrated today—but his predilection for underaged male prostitutes is hardly as laudable. Wilde did two years of hard labour for “homosexual acts,” but he would have spent as much time or more in jail today for statutory rape. Lord Byron once offered the mother of a 12-year-old girl 500 pounds for her. When the mother rejected his offer, he wrote “Maid of Athens, Ere We Part” in the girl’s name. Byron was eventually forced to leave England permanently amid allegations of incest, but when he died, the Times of London declared him “The most remarkable Englishman of his generation.” The sentiment survives today: on the sex lives of contemporary artists, the same paper recently quipped, “Even strait-laced Middle England bottles its outrage, accepting this side-effect of genius.”

Yet art critics and historians have often argued that the stories of artists’ wild sex lives are often overblown, the product of oversized egos and reputations. As the English conceptual artist Dinos Chapman recently said, “The truth is that artists aren’t that special. People just like to think so— especially artists.” Belatedly awaiting justice under house arrest, Polanski may yet find that to be true.

Polanski’s crime – and all its attendant issues of patriarchy, entitlement, and the like – is clearly a flashpoint for a great deal of emotion. But it is incumbent upon writers especially to take a step back from their emotional reactions to a situation and try to come to grips with the personages involved, in all their muddiness and humanity. Perhaps then, they would be able to see Polanski for what he is: a flawed, scarred, imperfect human being. A man who committed an unquestionably bad act. But the writer’s impulse, rather than jumping on a condemnatory emotional bandwagon, should be an attempt to understand that bad act. If artists abdicate this responsibility, who will be left to take it up?

On Beattie’s own blog, commenters have taken him to task for his stance, and I don’t disagree with them. No one, artist or otherwise, is duty-bound to feel empathy for anyone. I believe empathy to be a virtuous quality, of course, and I try to excercise it in my own life. I’ll even say “boy, it probably sucks to be Roman Polanski right now.” But empathy applied always and everywhere, to everyone, regardless of their conduct, renders it meaningless.

The writer’s duty — whether journalist, novelist, poet, the guy who writes the riddles on the back of the cereal box — is not empathy but judgment. Not in the sense of being judgmental, but in the sense of surveying the many possible aesthetic, philosophical, political, and moral choices open to her, and making decisions (about personal conduct, beauty, political stances, and so on) for considered, meaningful reasons.

I’ve read plenty about Roman Polanski in the last few days, and here’s what I think: he was an intermittently gifted filmmaker who has made a truckload of abhorrent personal choices, which include but are not limited to the rape of a 13-year-old girl, for which he willfully evaded responsibility for decades, all of which shows a moral compass dangerously askew. I don’t quite understand why the authorities picked him up now, but it was the right thing to do 32 years ago and it’s the right thing now.

I have plenty of empathy in the Roman Polanski case. It’s for his victim.