Online research in philosophy

There is a gap between, on the one hand, the tragic character of human action and, on the other hand, our moral and legal conceptions of responsibility that focus on individual agency and absolute guilt. Drawing on Kierkegaard’s understanding of tragic action and engaging with contemporary discourse on moral luck, poetic justice, and relational responsibility, this paper argues for a reform of our legal practices based on a less ‘harsh’ (Kierkegaard) conception of moral and legal responsibility and directed more at empathic understanding based on the emotional and imaginative appreciation of personal narratives. This may help our societies and communities to better cope with unacceptable deeds by individuals who are neither criminals nor patients, to make room for praise as well as blame and punishment, and to set up practices and institutions that do not rely on a conception of responsibility that is hard to bear for all of us.

This paper revisits the Pinto case not merely for the purpose of demythologizing the case, but as an opportunity to examine the broader issue of the logic of blame, the ascription of legal and moral responsibility. Three issues are addressed in the contexts of fault and liability in tort, criminal liability and product liability: 1) To what extent can judgments of moral wrongdoing or blame be inferred from legal judgments? 2) What are the strengths and weaknesses of attempting to model moral arguments upon legal ones? and, 3) What is the nature and role of judgments of risk evaluation in legal and moral judgments?

In this paper, I attempt to show that the moral/conventional distinction simply cannot bear the sort of weight many theorists have placed on it for determining the moral and criminal responsibility of psychopaths. After revealing the fractured nature of the distinction, I go on to suggest how one aspect of it may remain relevant—in a way that has previously been unappreciated—to discussions of the responsibility of psychopaths. In particular, after offering an alternative explanation of the available data on psychopaths and their judgments of various sorts of norm transgressions, I put forward a hybrid theory of their responsibility, suggesting how they might be criminally responsible, while nevertheless failing to meet the conditions for an important arena of moral responsibility.

The wrongness of rape -- Rationality and the rule of law in offences against the person -- Complicity and causality -- In defence of defences -- Justifications and reasons -- The gist of excuses -- Fletcher on offences and defences -- Provocation and pluralism -- The mark of responsibility -- The functions and justifications of criminal law and punishment -- Crime : in proportion and in perspective -- Reply to critics.

Various authors debate the question of whether neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility. However, a plethora of different techniques and technologies, each with their own abilities and drawbacks, lurks beneath the label “neuroscience”; and in criminal law responsibility is not a single, unitary and generic concept, but it is rather a syndrome of at least six different concepts. Consequently, there are at least six different responsibility questions that the criminal law asks – at least one for each responsibility concept – and, I will suggest, a multitude of ways in which the techniques and technologies that comprise neuroscience might help us to address those diverse questions. In a way, on my account neuroscience is relevant to criminal responsibility in many ways, but I hesitate to state my position like this because doing so obscures two points which I would rather highlight: one, neither neuroscience nor criminal responsibility are as unified as that; and two, the criminal law asks many different responsibility questions and not just one generic question.

The article is a review of A.P. Simester, ed., Appraising Strict Liability. We strongly recommend the book for the sophistication of the contributors’ analyses, and the contribution the book makes to clarifying the normative issues at stake in strict liability legal regimes. The review focuses on the more philosophical essays in the book. The specific issues from the book identified in the review are: the rights-based character of the prohibition on conviction without moral fault; the importance of the principle of proportionality; due diligence defences; the instrumental worth of strict liability in relation to quasi-criminal regulation; the faultiness of genuinely creating risks.

The concepts of 'liability age' and 'capacity responsibility' have been widely dissected by researchers in various fields. However, their application to both criminal and tort liability of children remains inconsistent. Furthermore, rarely has an interdisciplinary approach adequately dealt with these concepts and their impact on legal norms. This text investigates the notion of criminal and tort liability age in connection with the notion of capacity responsibility, in relation to children, and further questions the adequacy of the relevant legal norms. This endeavour to improve the applicable legal norms is supported by an analysis of the pertinent findings in the field of psychology, particularly in respect of the moral development of children. Informed by an excursion through the ideas of Piaget, Kohlberg, and Gilligan, among others, regarding the moral development of children, the text also serves to assess the impact of concepts of moral responsibility and maturity, in relation to the development of the legal norms, which determine the age of liability of children. The text concludes with a proposal for a criminal and tort liability age framework, based upon indicative/presumptive age milestones, and an integrated approach to all relevant circumstances in casu.