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233Blame, moral standing and the legitimacy of the criminal trialRatio 23 (2): 123-140. 2010.I begin by discussing the ways in which a would-be blamer's own prior conduct towards the person he seeks to blame can undermine his standing to blame her. This provides the basis for an examination of a particular kind of 'bar to trial' in the criminal law – of ways in which a state or a polity's right to put a defendant on trial can be undermined by the prior misconduct of the state or its officials. The examination of this often neglected legal phenomenon illuminates some central features of …Read more
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5Realism and Imagination in Ethics By Sabina Lovibond Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983,238 pp., £15.00 (review)Philosophy 59 (230): 541-542. 1984.
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75The Intrusion of MercyOhio State Journal of Criminal Law 4 361-87. 2007.On the basis of a communicative theory of criminal punishment, I show how mercy has a significant but limited role to play in the criminal law—in particular (although not only) in criminal sentencing. Mercy involves an intrusion into the realm of criminal law of values and concerns that are not themselves part of the perspective of criminal law: a merciful sentencer acts beyond the limits of her legal role, on the basis of moral considerations that conflict with the demands of penal justice. Som…Read more
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209Guiding Commitments and Criminal Liability for AttemptsCriminal Law and Philosophy 6 (3): 411-427. 2012.A critical discussion of Gideon Yaffe's "guiding commitment" account of attempts, with special reference to attempts in the criminal law.
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21Philosophical Foundations of Criminal Law (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 2011.25 leading contemporary theorists of criminal law tackle a range of foundational issues about the proper aims and structure of the criminal law in a liberal democracy. The challenges facing criminal law are many. There are crises of over-criminalization and over-imprisonment; penal policy has become so politicized that it is difficult to find any clear consensus on what aims the criminal law can properly serve; governments seeking to protect their citizens in the face of a range of perceived thr…Read more
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PunishmentIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The Oxford handbook of practical ethics, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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13What kind of responsibility must criminal law presuppose?In Richard Swinburne (ed.), Free Will and Modern Science, Oup/british Academy. 2011.This chapter argues that the kind of responsibility that we must have, if the enterprise of criminal law and punishment is to be consistent with the demands of justice, is something much more modest, much less metaphysically ambitious, than the ‘ultimate’ responsibility that Strawson so persuasively denies in Chapter 8. If we are to be clear about the kind of responsibility that is relevant to criminal law, we must first be clear about the criminal law itself — about the kind of enterprise that …Read more
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16Lawrence A. Blum, "Friendship, Altruism and Morality" (review)Philosophical Quarterly 32 (27): 181. 1982.
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48Trials and PunishmentsCambridge University Press. 1986.How can a system of criminal punishment be justified? In particular can it be justified if the moral demand that we respect each other as autonomous moral agents is taken seriously? Traditional attempts to justify punishment as a deterrent or as retribution fail, but Duff suggests that punishment can be understood as a communicative attempt to bring a wrong-doer to repent her crime. This account is supported by discussions of moral blame, of penance, of the nature of the law's demands, and of th…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Criminal Law |
Philosophy of Law, Miscellaneous |