I tackle the difficult problem of specifying how voluntary intoxication affects criminal culpability generally and recklessness in particular. I contend that the problem need not be conceptualized as an instance of actio libera in causa, namely the situation in which persons do something at t1 to culpably create the conditions of their own defense at t2. Instead, I argue that we need only consider intoxicated defendants at t2 in order to justify their punishment. In the course of defending my view, (...) I challenge conventional wisdom about both the nature of recklessness and the effects of intoxicants. I conclude by discussing a possible ground on which involuntary intoxication might be treated differently. (shrink)

Doug Husak has argued, persuasively I think, that there is no literal ‘act requirement’ in Anglo-American law. I begin by reviewing Husak’s reasons for rejecting the act requirement, and provide additional reasons to think he is right to do so. But Husak’s alternative, the ‘control condition’, I argue, is inadequate. The control requirement is falsified by the widespread practice of holding extremely intoxicated offenders liable for criminal conduct they engage in even if they lack control over their conduct at the (...) time of the offense, and even if they are acting involuntarily. I provide examples from Canadian, US and German law to flesh out our legal practices with respect to intoxicated offenders. I then argue that, at least with respect to one class of intoxicated offenders–those known as ‘grand schemers’, who plan their criminal offending prior to rendering themselves incapable of voluntary control over their conduct–we are morally justified in imposing liability. I then propose an alternative to both the act and control requirements: what I call the ‘agency requirement’. I argue that our law does and should impose liability for conduct that is expressive of or constitutive of the defendant’s practically rational agency. Adopting an agency view allows us to expand our focus from just the moment of the offense to temporally extended instances of agency, such as is involved in planned offending by grand schemers. (shrink)

The actio libera in causa doctrine, as originally formulated by various Enlightenment philosophers, concerns the imputation of responsibility to actors for actions unfree in themselves, but free in their causes. Like our Enlightenment counterparts, contemporary philosophers of criminal law, as well as most Western legal systems (both common law and civil), allow that persons can be responsible for acts that are not free when performed, provided they were free in their causes. The actio libera doctrine allows us to impute unfree (...) actions to persons, provided they were responsible for causing the conditions of unfreedom that characterizes those actions when performed. This doctrine seems to be instantiated in a great many actual legal practices. But I argue that we must distinguish between two importantly different understandings of the doctrine itself and its application in law. On the one hand, the actio libera doctrine allows us to waive the voluntariness requirement that is generally needed for criminal liability. On the other hand, it disallows defendants to appeal to defences they would otherwise be entitled to use to block liability, if they culpably created the conditions of their own defence. The first case involves rules of imputation, while the second concerns culpability, and justifying the actio libera doctrine therefore faces different challenges in the two cases. (shrink)