Crime And Culpability: A Theory Of Criminal Law (cambridge Introductions To Philosophy And Law)

This book presents a comprehensive overview of what the criminal law would look like if organized around the principle that those who deserve punishment should receive punishment commensurate with, but no greater than, that which they deserve. Larry Alexander and Kimberly Kessler Ferzan argue that desert is a function of the actor's culpability, and that culpability is a function of the risks of harm to protected interests that the actor believes he is imposing and his reasons for acting in the face of those risks. The authors deny that resultant harms, as well as unperceived risks, affect the actor's desert. They thus reject punishment for inadvertent negligence as well as for intentions or preparatory acts that are not risky. Alexander and Ferzan discuss the reasons for imposing risks that negate or mitigate culpability, the individuation of crimes, and omissions. They conclude with a discussion of rules versus standards in criminal law and offer a description of the shape of criminal law in the event that the authors' conceptualization is put into practice. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Series Title......Page 5 Title......Page 7 Copyright......Page 8 Contents......Page 11 Acknowledgments......Page 15 PART ONE Introduction: Retributivism and the Criminal Law......Page 17 CHAPTER I Criminal Law, Punishment, and Desert......Page 19 I. The Criminal Law and Preventing Harm......Page 20 A. WEAK, MODERATE, OR STRONG RETRIBUTIVISM?......Page 23 B. MEASURING DESERT......Page 26 C. THE STRENGTH OF THE RETRIBUTIVIST SIDE CONSTRAINT......Page 28 D. THE FREEWILL-DETERMINISM DEBATE......Page 29 E. CHOICE OR CHARACTER?......Page 32 III. Conclusion......Page 33 PART TWO The Culpable Choice......Page 37 CHAPTER II The Essence of Culpability: Acts Manifesting Insufficient Concern for the Legally Protected Interests of Others......Page 39 I. Unpacking Recklessness......Page 41 II. Folding Knowledge and Purpose into Recklessness......Page 47 A. KNOWLEDGE......Page 48 B. PURPOSE......Page 51 A. UNDERSTANDING INSUFFICIENT CONCERN......Page 57 1. How Many Categories Do We Need?......Page 58 2. Indifference Compared......Page 59 3. Bizarre Metaphysical Beliefs and Culpability......Page 61 1. The Holism of Risk Assessment......Page 62 2. Opaque Recklessness......Page 67 3. Genetic Recklessness......Page 74 C. REASONS AND JUSTIFICATION......Page 75 D. SINCERE, UNREASONABLE, AND RECKLESS BELIEFS AND THE CULPABILITY DETERMINATION......Page 79 E. RECKLESSNESS AND ACT AGGREGATION......Page 80 IV. Proxy Crimes......Page 82 CHAPTER III Negligence......Page 85 I. Why Negligence Is Not Culpable......Page 86 A. SIMONS’S CULPABLE INDIFFERENCE......Page 87 B. TADROS’S CHARACTER APPROACH......Page 90 C. GARVEY’S DOXASTIC SELF-CONTROL THEORY......Page 91 III. The Strongest Counterexample to Our Position......Page 93 IV. The Arbitrariness of the Reasonable-Person Test......Page 97 CHAPTER IV Defeaters of Culpability......Page 102 I. Justifications and Excuses: Reorienting the Debate......Page 104 A. EVISCERATING THE OFFENSE-DEFENSE DISTINCTION......Page 107 B. ELIMINATING THE WRONGDOING-CULPABILITY DISTINCTION......Page 108 A. IN GENERAL: THE LESSER-EVILS PARADIGM......Page 109 1. The General Consequentialist Structure of Lesser-Evil Choices......Page 110 2. Deontological Constraints on the Consequentialist Calculus......Page 112 3. Second- and Third-Party Implications......Page 119 4. The Special Case of Lesser versus Least Evil......Page 120 B. SELF-DEFENSE, CULPABLE AGGRESSORS, AND OTHER CULPABLE ACTORS......Page 124 1. Rights-Based Justifications......Page 125 2. Third-Party Focus......Page 126 3. Justified Responses to Culpable Aggressors......Page 128 4. The Risk That a Possible Culpable Aggressor Is Not One......Page 139 6. The Provoked Culpable Aggressor......Page 142 7. The Range of Culpable Actors......Page 144 C. SOCIALLY JUSTIFYING REASONS: SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS......Page 149 III. Excuses......Page 150 A. PERSONAL JUSTIFICATIONS AND HARD CHOICES......Page 151 1. Personal Justifications......Page 152 2. Expanding Duress......Page 157 3. Duress, Preemptive Action, and Proportionality......Page 160 4. Implications......Page 161 5. A Possible Extension? Preemptive Collective Protection and Preventive Detention......Page 166 B. EXCULPATORY MISTAKES......Page 167 1. Excuses versus Exemptions......Page 171 2. Insanity......Page 172 3. Degraded Decision-Making Conditions......Page 174 A. THE PERPLEXING PARTIAL EXCUSE OF PROVOCATION......Page 178 1. Provocation as Justification......Page 179 3. Provocation as Excuse (2): The Decision-Making Explanation......Page 180 B. ASSIMILATING PROVOCATION......Page 182 C. HOW MITIGATION WORKS......Page 184 PART THREE The Culpable Act......Page 185 CHAPTER V Only Culpability, Not Resulting Harm, Affects Desert......Page 187 I. The Irrelevance of Results......Page 188 II. The Intuitive Appeal of the “Results Matter” Claim......Page 191 A. IF NEGATIVE RESULTS INCREASE BLAMEWORTHINESS, DO POSITIVE RESULTS DECREASE BLAMEWORTHINESS?......Page 194 B. CAUSAL CONUNDRUMS......Page 196 IV. Free Will and Determinism Reprised......Page 204 V. The Immateriality of Results and Ancestral Culpable Acts......Page 207 VI. The Immateriality of Results and Inchoate Crimes......Page 208 VII. Inculpatory Mistakes and the Puzzle of Legally Impossible Attempts......Page 210 CHAPTER VI When Are Inchoate Crimes Culpable and Why?......Page 213 A. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS......Page 214 B. INTENTIONS......Page 215 1. Are Intentions Acts?......Page 216 2. Why Intentions Are Not Culpable Acts......Page 217 C. SUBSTANTIAL STEPS......Page 226 D. DANGEROUS PROXIMITY......Page 230 E. LAST ACTS......Page 232 A. WHEN PREPARATORY ACTS ARE ALSO LAST ACTS......Page 233 B. LIT-FUSE ATTEMPTS......Page 236 C. IMPOSSIBLE ATTEMPTS......Page 237 D. RECONCEPTUALIZING OTHER INCHOATE CRIMES......Page 239 CHAPTER VII The Locus of Culpability......Page 242 A. RETHINKING CULPABLE ACTION......Page 244 B. FROM VOLITIONS TO WILLED BODILY MOVEMENTS......Page 247 A. BACKGROUND: THE “NO CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR OMISSIONS” REGIME AND EXCEPTIONS THERETO......Page 250 B. ELEMENTS OF OMISSIONS LIABILITY......Page 253 C. THE CRIME OF POSSESSION......Page 255 A. RISKY ACTS AND FAILURES TO RESCUE......Page 257 B. CULPABILITY AND DURATION......Page 258 IV. Individuating Crimes......Page 260 1. A Brief Normative Defense......Page 261 2. Disentangling Legally Protected Interests......Page 262 1. Counting Willed Bodily Movements......Page 266 2. Volume Discounts......Page 270 3. Analyzing Continuous Courses of Conduct......Page 273 PART FOUR A Proposed Code......Page 277 CHAPTER VIII What a Culpability-Based Criminal Code Might Look Like......Page 279 A. LEGALLY PROTECTED INTERESTS......Page 280 1. A Normative Defense of Unpacking Crimes......Page 281 2. Which Interests?......Page 285 1. Some Preliminaries......Page 293 2. A First Attempt......Page 294 II. From an Idealized Code to a Practical One: Implementing Our Theory in “the Real World”......Page 304 1. Three Significant Problems with the Current State of Criminal Law......Page 305 2. Do Our Current Criminal Codes Contain Rules?......Page 308 2. The Argument for Rules over Standards......Page 311 3. Problems with Rules......Page 313 4. An Empirical Experiment......Page 318 1. Recognizing the Alternatives......Page 322 2. Enacting Proxy Crimes......Page 325 D. LEGALITY QUESTIONS......Page 329 1. Notice......Page 330 2. Constraining Power......Page 331 1. Do We Unjustly Empower Prosecutors?......Page 333 2. Reconciling Our Act Requirement with Concerns about Law Enforcement......Page 334 F. PROCEDURAL, EVIDENTIARY, AND SENTENCING CONSIDERATIONS......Page 337 1. Burdens of Proof and Evidentiary Rules......Page 338 3. Sentencing Considerations......Page 339 Epilogue......Page 341 General instructions:......Page 343 Defense of self and others:......Page 344 In making this determination, I advise you that......Page 345 Primary Materials......Page 347 Secondary Materials......Page 350 Index......Page 365 Cover 1 Half-title 3 Series Title 5 Title 7 Copyright 8 Contents 11 Acknowledgments 15 PART ONE Introduction: Retributivism and the Criminal Law 17 CHAPTER I Criminal Law, Punishment, and Desert 19 I. The Criminal Law and Preventing Harm 20 II. Questions about Retributivism 23 A. WEAK, MODERATE, OR STRONG RETRIBUTIVISM? 23 B. MEASURING DESERT 26 C. THE STRENGTH OF THE RETRIBUTIVIST SIDE CONSTRAINT 28 D. THE FREEWILL-DETERMINISM DEBATE 29 E. CHOICE OR CHARACTER? 32 III. Conclusion 33 PART TWO The Culpable Choice 37 CHAPTER II The Essence of Culpability: Acts Manifesting Insufficient Concern for the Legally Protected Interests of Others 39 I. Unpacking Recklessness 41 II. Folding Knowledge and Purpose into Recklessness 47 A. KNOWLEDGE 48 B. PURPOSE 51 III. A Unified Conception of Criminal Culpability 57 A. UNDERSTANDING INSUFFICIENT CONCERN 57 1. How Many Categories Do We Need? 58 2. Indifference Compared 59 3. Bizarre Metaphysical Beliefs and Culpability 61 4. Deontological Norms and Consequentialist Justifications 62 B. ASSESSING THE RISK 62 1. The Holism of Risk Assessment 62 2. Opaque Recklessness 67 3. Genetic Recklessness 74 C. REASONS AND JUSTIFICATION 75 D. SINCERE, UNREASONABLE, AND RECKLESS BELIEFS AND THE CULPABILITY DETERMINATION 79 E. RECKLESSNESS AND ACT AGGREGATION 80 IV. Proxy Crimes 82 CHAPTER III Negligence 85 I. Why Negligence Is Not Culpable 86 II. Attempts at Narrowing the Reach of Negligence Liability 87 A. SIMONS’S CULPABLE INDIFFERENCE 87 B. TADROS’S CHARACTER APPROACH 90 C. GARVEY’S DOXASTIC SELF-CONTROL THEORY 91 III. The Strongest Counterexample to Our Position 93 IV. The Arbitrariness of the Reasonable-Person Test 97 CHAPTER IV Defeaters of Culpability 102 I. Justifications and Excuses: Reorienting the Debate 104 A. EVISCERATING THE OFFENSE-DEFENSE DISTINCTION 107 B. ELIMINATING THE WRONGDOING-CULPABILITY DISTINCTION 108 C. SUMMARY 109 II. Socially Justifying Reasons 109 A. IN GENERAL: THE LESSER-EVILS PARADIGM 109 1. The General Consequentialist Structure of Lesser-Evil Choices 110 2. Deontological Constraints on the Consequentialist Calculus 112 3. Second- and Third-Party Implications 119 4. The Special Case of Lesser versus Least Evil 120 B. SELF-DEFENSE, CULPABLE AGGRESSORS, AND OTHER CULPABLE ACTORS 124 1. Rights-Based Justifications 125 2. Third-Party Focus 126 3. Justified Responses to Culpable Aggressors 128 4. The Risk That a Possible Culpable Aggressor Is Not One 139 5. Culpable Aggressors versus Culpable Aggressors 142 6. The Provoked Culpable Aggressor 142 7. The Range of Culpable Actors 144 C. SOCIALLY JUSTIFYING REASONS: SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS 149 III. Excuses 150 A. PERSONAL JUSTIFICATIONS AND HARD CHOICES 151 1. Personal Justifications 152 2. Expanding Duress 157 3. Duress, Preemptive Action, and Proportionality 160 4. Implications 161 5. A Possible Extension? Preemptive Collective Protection and Preventive Detention 166 B. EXCULPATORY MISTAKES 167 C. IMPAIRED RATIONALITY EXCUSES 171 1. Excuses versus Exemptions 171 2. Insanity 172 3. Degraded Decision-Making Conditions 174 IV. Mitigating Culpability 178 A. THE PERPLEXING PARTIAL EXCUSE OF PROVOCATION 178 1. Provocation as Justification 179 2. Provocation as Excuse (1): The Character Explanation 180 3. Provocation as Excuse (2): The Decision-Making Explanation 180 B. ASSIMILATING PROVOCATION 182 C. HOW MITIGATION WORKS 184 PART THREE The Culpable Act 185 CHAPTER V Only Culpability, Not Resulting Harm, Affects Desert 187 I. The Irrelevance of Results 188 II. The Intuitive Appeal of the “Results Matter” Claim 191 III. “Results Matter” Quandaries 194 A. IF NEGATIVE RESULTS INCREASE BLAMEWORTHINESS, DO POSITIVE RESULTS DECREASE BLAMEWORTHINESS? 194 B. CAUSAL CONUNDRUMS 196 IV. Free Will and Determinism Reprised 204 V. The Immateriality of Results and Ancestral Culpable Acts 207 VI. The Immateriality of Results and Inchoate Crimes 208 VII. Inculpatory Mistakes and the Puzzle of Legally Impossible Attempts 210 CHAPTER VI When Are Inchoate Crimes Culpable and Why? 213 I. Our Theory of Culpable Action 214 A. PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS 214 B. INTENTIONS 215 1. Are Intentions Acts? 216 2. Why Intentions Are Not Culpable Acts 217 C. SUBSTANTIAL STEPS 226 D. DANGEROUS PROXIMITY 230 E. LAST ACTS 232 II. Some Qualifications and Further Applications 233 A. WHEN PREPARATORY ACTS ARE ALSO LAST ACTS 233 B. LIT-FUSE ATTEMPTS 236 C. IMPOSSIBLE ATTEMPTS 237 D. RECONCEPTUALIZING OTHER INCHOATE CRIMES 239 CHAPTER VII The Locus of Culpability 242 I. The Unit of Culpable Action 244 A. RETHINKING CULPABLE ACTION 244 B. FROM VOLITIONS TO WILLED BODILY MOVEMENTS 247 II. Culpability for Omissions 250 A. BACKGROUND: THE “NO CRIMINAL LIABILITY FOR OMISSIONS” REGIME AND EXCEPTIONS THERETO 250 B. ELEMENTS OF OMISSIONS LIABILITY 253 C. THE CRIME OF POSSESSION 255 III. Acts, Omission, and Duration 257 A. RISKY ACTS AND FAILURES TO RESCUE 257 B. CULPABILITY AND DURATION 258 IV. Individuating Crimes 260 A. TYPES OF CRIMES 261 1. A Brief Normative Defense 261 2. Disentangling Legally Protected Interests 262 B. TOKENS OF CRIMES 266 1. Counting Willed Bodily Movements 266 2. Volume Discounts 270 3. Analyzing Continuous Courses of Conduct 273 PART FOUR A Proposed Code 277 CHAPTER VIII What a Culpability-Based Criminal Code Might Look Like 279 I. An Idealized Culpability-Based Criminal Code 280 A. LEGALLY PROTECTED INTERESTS 280 1. A Normative Defense of Unpacking Crimes 281 2. Which Interests? 285 B. CALCULATING CULPABILITY 293 1. Some Preliminaries 293 2. A First Attempt 294 II. From an Idealized Code to a Practical One: Implementing Our Theory in “the Real World” 304 A. WHAT WE ARE SEEKING TO REPLACE 305 1. Three Significant Problems with the Current State of Criminal Law 305 2. Do Our Current Criminal Codes Contain Rules? 308 B. IMPLEMENTING A PRACTICAL CODE 311 1. Rules versus Standards: In General 311 2. The Argument for Rules over Standards 311 3. Problems with Rules 313 4. An Empirical Experiment 318 C. INEVITABLE PROXY CRIMES 322 1. Recognizing the Alternatives 322 2. Enacting Proxy Crimes 325 D. LEGALITY QUESTIONS 329 1. Notice 330 2. Constraining Power 331 E. ENFORCEMENT PROBLEMS 333 1. Do We Unjustly Empower Prosecutors? 333 2. Reconciling Our Act Requirement with Concerns about Law Enforcement 334 F. PROCEDURAL, EVIDENTIARY, AND SENTENCING CONSIDERATIONS 337 1. Burdens of Proof and Evidentiary Rules 338 2. Plea Bargaining 339 3. Sentencing Considerations 339 Epilogue 341 Appendix Sample Initial Instructions (Prior to Calculation by Guidelines) 343 General instructions: 343 Defense of self and others: 344 In making this determination, I advise you that 345 Bibliography 347 Primary Materials 347 Secondary Materials 350 Index 365 "This book presents a comprehensive overview of what the criminal law would look like if organised around the principle that those who deserve punishment should receive punishment commensurate with, but no greater than, that which they deserve. Larry Alexander and Kimberly Kessler Ferzan argue that desert is a function of the actor's culpability, and that culpability is a function of the risks of harm to protected interests that the actor believes he is imposing and his reasons for acting in the face of those risks. The authors deny that resultant harms, as well as unperceived risks, affect the actor's desert. They thus reject punishment for inadvertent negligence as well as for intentions or preparatory acts that are not risky. Alexander and Ferzan discuss the reasons for imposing risks that negate or mitigate culpability, the individuation of crimes, and omissions."--Provided by publisher