The state’s use of the threat, and imposition, of punishments to regulate conduct is thought (or at least said) by many to be legitimised by the idea that the criminal law’s burdens only fall on those who are blameworthy for their conduct. However, the formal concept of ‘blameworthiness’ needs to be made substantive. This puts various ideas regarding the criminal law’s person at the heart of debates about blame, guilt, and responsibility. How is the criminal law’s person constructed, by whom, and with what disciplinary norms? How is it threatened by new ‘knowledge’, and how do those threats play out amongst the various stakeholders who claim the criminal law’s person as ‘theirs’? To address these and cognate questions, this volume brings together an international group of academics to engage with the criminal law’s person from a range of disciplinary perspectives.
1. Introduction: The Criminal Law’s Person Claes Lernestedt, Stockholm University, Sweden and Matt Matravers, University of York, UK I. Criminal Justice: Political Not Metaphysical II. The Criminal Law and the Criminal Law’s Person(s) III. Contested Sources, Contested Purposes IV. Outline of the Volume 2. The Criminal Law’s Various Persons Matt Matravers, University of York, UK I. Introduction II. Ex Ante: Criminalisation, Policing and Prosecution III. Ex Post: Conviction and Sentencing IV. ‘Science’ and the Criminal Law’s Various Persons 3. The Criminal Law’s Person and Normative Elements in the Legal Definition of Excusing Circumstances Kai Hamdorf, Federal Court of Justice, Germany I. Introduction II. The Presumption of Guilt in the Normative Concept of the Criminal Law’s Person III. The Presumption of Guilt and Excusing Circumstances in Criminal Law IV. Conclusions 4. Standard-Setting versus Tracking ‘Profound’ Blameworthiness: What should be the Role of the Rules for Ascription of Responsibility? Claes Lernestedt, Stockholm University, Sweden I. Introduction II. Criminal Law Backwards and Forwards III. What if? A Flexible within IV. A Few Examples V. Closing Comments: The Criminal Law and Everyday People 5. Attributability and Accountability in the Criminal Law Robin Zheng, University of Glasgow, UK I. Two Concepts of Responsibility II. Two Routes to Criminal Responsibility: The Attributability Route III. Two Routes to Criminal Responsibility: The Accountability Route IV. Two Persons of Criminal Responsibility V. Attributability versus Accountability 6. In Search of Criminal Law’s Person Malcolm Thorburn, University of Toronto, Canada I. Introduction II. Legal Personality III. Responsible Agency in Criminal Law IV. Conclusion 7. Victims Who Victimise: Guilt in Political Theory and Moral Psychology Alan Norrie, Warwick University, UK I. The Problem of Perpetrators as Victims Who Victimise II. Normative Political Theory: The Problem of the Ideal and the Actual III. The Moral Psychology of Guilt: Towards a Moral Grammar IV. The Guilt of Perpetrators as Victims Who Victimise 8. Responsibility Beyond Blame: Unfree Agency and the Moral Psychology of Criminal Law’s Persons Craig Reeves, Birkbeck, University of London, UK I. Introduction II. Blame and Blameworthiness III. The Tyranny of the Past IV. Unfree Agency V. The Moral Psychology of Heteronomy VI. The Antinomy of Responsibility VII. Responsibility, Reification and Respect VIII. The Grammar of Taking Responsibility 9. Implicit Bias, Self-Defence and the Reasonable Person Jules Holroyd, University of Sheffield, UK and Federico Picinali, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK I. Introduction II. Unreasonable Persons and Biased Beliefs III. Racism and Self-Defence IV. US Law and the ‘Reasonable-Belief Rule’ V. Evaluating the Reasonable Person Standards VI. English and Welsh Law and the Genuine Belief Rule VII. A Palliative Solution VIII. Concluding Remarks
Claes Lernestedt is Professor of Criminal Law at Stockholm University. Matt Matravers is Director of the Morrell Centre for Toleration at the University of York.
Reviews for The Criminal Law’s Person
A fascinating book of individually excellent criminal law theory essays which collectively amount to something even greater than their sum. -- David Prendergast * The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice *
