Philosophy Bites Again by David Edmonds & Nigel Warburton

Author:David Edmonds & Nigel Warburton [Edmonds, David]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780198702696
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2014-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

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nicola lacey on

Criminal Responsibility

David Edmonds: Suppose in the jungle I shoot a man thinking he was a threatening tiger. Have I killed the man intentionally? It’s the sort of conundrum that keeps lawyers, as well as philosophers, happily preoccupied. There appear to be a number of factors that need to be in place before someone is held criminally responsible for an action, such as whether they know what they’re doing, and whether they should know what they’re doing. These, in a way, are timeless considerations. They apply to a criminal action now, or one hundred years ago, but Nicola Lacey argues that there’s also an historical component to criminal responsibility that can’t be ignored. The concept of criminal responsibility makes sense only within the particular institutional framework in which it operates.

Nigel Warburton: The topic we’re going to focus on is criminal responsibility. Could you just begin by outlining what criminal responsibility is?

Nicola Lacey: We use the term ‘responsibility’ in lots of different ways when we’re talking about the criminal law. Sometimes, if we talk about someone being criminally responsible, we’re simply referring to the fact that they’ve been convicted; but, actually, when lawyers talk about criminal responsibility, they are usually separating out just one of the components that feeds into a justified criminal conviction, and that has something to do with not just the person’s conduct, but the attitude or state of mind with which they engaged in that conduct. To show that someone had not only done an act, but was responsible for having done it, certain other conditions would have to be fulfilled. Those conditions are generally thought to be relevant to whether it is fair to hold someone responsible, and whether it is fair, therefore, to convict them.

NW: So, if I flick a switch on the wall and, unbeknownst to me, it’s attached to somebody else, and I give them an electric shock that’s fatal, I probably wouldn’t be criminally, or morally, responsible for that act.

NL: Exactly. We draw a rough common-sense distinction between things that are accidental—things that just happen—and things that people make happen, or intend. Take an example I like to use with students. I’m in a crowded underground station, at the top of an escalator, somebody jolts me, I bump into the next person, she falls and she’s injured. I’m responsible in some very minimal sense, perhaps, but essentially most people would call that an accident. If, on the other hand, I take a dislike to the person in front of me and give him a shove, intentionally, that is clearly a case where I’m responsible. Lawyers tend to like Latin tags, so it’s often known in criminal law as mens rea (guilty mind), and it consists in a number of different mental states or attitudes: good examples would be intention—the fact I do something intentionally, purposely, with relevant knowledge of the surrounding circumstances, or perhaps foreseeing a certain outcome. Suppose I don’t intend a person I push on the escalator to fall, but I do foresee that there’s a risk of that, then that would be recklessness.

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