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4"Rights, Goods, and Democracy" by Ramon M. Lemos (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 49 (3): 541. 1989.
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66Killing, letting die and euthanasiaJournal of Medical Ethics 5 (4): 200-202. 1979.Medical ethicists debate whether or not the moral assessment of cases of euthanasia should depend on whether the patient is 'killed' or 'allowed to die'. The usual presupposition is that a clear distinction between killing and letting die can be drawn so that this substantive question is not begged. I contend that the categorisation of cases of instances of killing rather than as instances of letting die depends in part on a prior moral assessment of the case. Hence is it trivially rather than s…Read more
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29On the Rights of Non-PersonsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (4). 1980.Do non-persons have moral rights? I will suppose this question can best be answered by inquiring whether some animals and/or environmental objects have moral rights, for if any non-persons are possessors of rights, animals and/or environmental objects are the most plausible candidates. As so interpreted, this question has received an extraordinary amount of recent attention from philosophers. Arguments have been offered and defended; rebuttals have appeared in print. Yet, so far as I am aware, n…Read more
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1A Framework for Punishment: What is the Insight of Hart's 'Prolegomenon'?In C. G. Pulman (ed.), Hart on Responsibility, Palgrave-macmillan. 2014.
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Jon Elster, Strong Feelings: Emotion, Addiction, and Human Behavior (review)Philosophy in Review 20 19-21. 2000.
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31Benn on privacy and respect for personsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 57 (4). 1979.This Article does not have an abstract
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103Intoxication and CulpabilityCriminal Law and Philosophy 6 (3): 363-379. 2012.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 vi…Read more
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57Social Engineering as an Infringement of the Presumption of Innocence: The Case of Corporate Criminality (review)Criminal Law and Philosophy 8 (2): 353-369. 2014.I examine how deferred-prosecution agreements employed against suspected corporate criminality amount to a form of social engineering that infringes the presumption. I begin with a broad understanding of the presumption itself. Then I offer a brief description of how these agreements function. Finally I address some of the normative issues that must be confronted if legal philosophers who hold retributivist views on punishment and sentencing hope to assess this device. My judgment tends to be fa…Read more
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44Drug Proscriptions as Proxy CrimesLaw and Philosophy 36 (4): 345-366. 2017.Our drug policy has been widely deemed a failure because the criminalization of drug use has not succeeded in reducing prevalence rates. I contend that the most promising basis to defend the justifiability of drug offenses is to construe them as proxy crimes: offenses designed to prevent the commission of other, more serious crimes. I make a case that many law enforcement officials use drug proscriptions for this purpose in the real world. When construed as proxy crimes, drug prohibitions are le…Read more
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11Philosophical Analysis and the Limits of the Substantive Criminal LawCriminal Justice Ethics 18 (2): 58. 1999.George P. Fletcher, Basic Concepts of Criminal Law New York: Oxford University Press, 1998, xi + 223 pp.
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77[Book review] drugs and rights (review)Criminal Justice Ethics 14 (1): 63-72. 1995.This important book was the first serious work of philosophy to address the question: Do adults have a moral right to use drugs for recreational purposes? Many critics of the 'war on drugs' denounce law enforcement as counterproductive and ineffective. Douglas Husak argues that the 'war on drugs' violates the moral rights of adults who want to use drugs for pleasure, and that criminal laws against such use are incompatible with moral rights. This is not a polemical tract but a scrupulously argue…Read more
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36The Philosophy of Criminal Law: Extending the Debates (review)Criminal Law and Philosophy 7 (2): 351-365. 2013.Larry Alexander and Peter Westen each critically examine different topics from my recent collection of essays, The Philosophy of Criminal Law. Alexander focuses on my “Rapes Without Rapists,” “Mistake of Law and Culpability,” and “Already Punished Enough.” Westen offers a more extended commentary on my “Transferred Intent.” I briefly reply to each critic in turn and try to extend the debates in new directions
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34Abetting a CrimeLaw and Philosophy 33 (1): 41-73. 2014.I focus on the set of problems that arise in identifying both the actus reus and (to an even greater extent) the mens rea needed by an abettor before she should be criminally liable for complicity in a crime. No consensus on these issues has emerged in positive law; commentators are enormously dissatisfied with the decisions courts have reached; and critics disagree radically about what reforms should be implemented to rectify this state of affairs. I explicitly deny that I will be able to solve…Read more
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77Is the Distinction between Positive Actions and Omissions Value-Neutral?Tulane Studies in Philosophy 33 83-92. 1985.
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73The Criminal Law as Last ResortOxford Journal of Legal Studies 24 (2): 207-235. 2004.In this article I examine one condition a minimalist theory of criminalization might contain: the criminal law should be used only as a last resort. I discuss how this principle should be interpreted and the reasons we have to accept it. I conclude that a theory of criminalization should probably include the (appropriately construed) last resort principle. But this conclusion will prove disappointing to those who hope to employ this principle to bring about fundamental reform in the substantive …Read more
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79The Costs to Criminal Theory of Supposing that Intentions are Irrelevant to PermissibilityCriminal Law and Philosophy 3 (1): 51-70. 2009.I attempt to describe the several costs that criminal theory would be forced to pay by adopting the view (currently fashionable among moral philosophers) that the intentions of the agent are irrelevant to determinations of whether his actions are permissible (or criminal)
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14Ronald Dworkin and the Right to LibertyTaking Rights SeriouslyRonald DworkinEthics 90 (1): 121-130. 1979.