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Review of Alexander Sarch’s Criminally Ignorant

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Notes

  1. This narrative is taken from the seminal culpable-ignorance case United States v. Jewell, 532 F. 2d 697 (9th Cir. 1976).

  2. Unless otherwise indicated, all references are to Criminally Ignorant.

  3. Then-judge Anthony Kennedy raised this legality concern in his dissenting opinion in Jewell. As Sarch notes, Douglas Husak and Craig Callender (1994) address the legality concern by calling for criminalizing the failure to satisfy the epistemic duty. Such a reform would substantially abate the challenge here, as it would avoid pretending from the outset. Sarch addresses the legality concern by inviting legislative reform, but that solution is only partial. Insofar as the legislative reform preserves the pretense, aspects of the legality concern remain.

  4. Sarch also considers the voluntary-intoxication doctrine, which could be understood as an exception to this pattern. I express skepticism about the voluntary-intoxication doctrine elsewhere (2016).

  5. My comments are developed from comments I offered during an Author-Meets-Critics session on Criminally Ignorant at the American Philosophical Association’s Eastern Division Meeting in January 2020. I participated in that session with Alexander Sarch, Emad Atiq, Mihailis Diamantis, and Robert Hughes. I thank them and our audience for a productive and lively conversation about Sarch’s text.

References

  • Agule, Craig K. 2016. “Resisting Tracing’s Siren Song.” Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy 10 (1): pp. 1–24.

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  • Husak, Douglas N., and Craig A. Callender. 1994. “Wilful Ignorance, Knowledge, and the ‘Equal Culpability’ Thesis: A Study of the Deeper Significance of the Principle of Legality.” Wisconsin Law Review 1994: pp. 29-69.

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  • Sarch, Alexander. Criminally Ignorant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019).

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Agule, C.K. Review of Alexander Sarch’s Criminally Ignorant. Criminal Law, Philosophy 15, 521–527 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-021-09582-9

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