Abstract
I respond to Michael Zimmerman and Gideon Yaffe, both of whom have written thoughtful and constructive criticisms of my “Ignorance of Law”. Zimmerman believes I do not go far enough in exculpating morally ignorant wrongdoers; he accuses me of lacking the courage of my convictions in allowing exceptions for reckless wrongdoers (who I allege to have a lesser degree of blameworthiness than those who are knowledgeable) and for willfully ignorant wrongdoers (who I allege to be as blameworthy as those who are knowledgeable). Yaffe, by contrast, thinks I rely on a defective foundation of moral blameworthiness. He proposes an alternative account he alleges to conform more closely to common sense. In responding to both critics, I emphasize that our points of agreement may be more significant than our disagreements.
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Notes
Douglas Husak: Overcriminalization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
See the description of methodology in Joel Feinberg: Harm to Others (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984, pp. 16–19).
To be sure, Zimmerman scores points by stressing that “almost everyone” accounts for “an agent’s being (indirectly) morally responsible for something on the basis of that agent’s being (directly) morally responsible for something else” (13). In cases in which we (knowingly) kill by flipping a switch, for example, responsibility for throwing a switch becomes responsibility for the deaths that result. I make no effort to reconcile my general theory of blameworthiness with a sensible position on the problem of resultant moral luck.
See “Distraction and Negligence,” in Lucia Zedner and Julian Roberts, eds.: Principles and Values in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice: Essays in Honour of Andrew Ashworth (Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 81; and “Negligence, Belief, Blame and Criminal Liability: The Special Case of Forgetting,” 5 Criminal Law and Philosophy (2011, p. 199).
See Robert J. Matthews: “Beliefs and Belief’s Penumbra,” in Nikolaj Nottelmann, ed.: New Essays on Belief (Palgrave MacMillan, 2013, p. 100).
See Gideon Yaffe: “Mens Rea by the Numbers,” Criminal Law & Philosophy (forthcoming, 2018).
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Husak, D. Aspiration, Execution, and Controversy: Reply to My Critics. Criminal Law, Philosophy 12, 351–362 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-017-9446-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-017-9446-5