Douglas Husak’s piece, Why Punish the Deserving?, is clearly relevant to the guiding question for this module: “When must we punish the deserving?” It is often assumed that just because someone deserves punishment, he/she ought to be punished. Yet, Husak believes that this is too large of a leap and…

In The Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant writes on the “right to punish and grant clemency.” He believes that the right to punish is the right of a ruler to inflict pain upon a subject in response to a crime committed by the subject (140). He distinguishes between private crimes…

In the HiPhi Nation podcast episode entitled Justice and Retribution, Barry Lam discusses the criminal justice system with several experts, who, from personal experience and academic studies, have differing views of the purposes and goals of the criminal justice system. Lam first introduces Marilynn Winn, whose decades-long prison sentences for…

Tadros, in his piece, Poverty and Criminal Responsibility, argues that poverty is a valid reason to exempt certain people, in certain circumstances, from criminal responsibility. To begin his argument, Tadros makes two assumptions about a hypothetical society. First, he assumes that the poor people in a society are poor as…

Earlier in the semester, after reading The Nature and Significance of Culpability by David O. Brink, we discussed the effects of excuses and justifications on culpability and blameworthiness and we distinguished excuses from justifications. According to Brink, “Justifications, such as self defense or necessity, deny wrongdoing, whereas excuses, such as…

In Moral Luck and the Law, David Enoch talks about moral luck and legal luck and how they impact the moral blameworthiness of those who commit crimes. In the beginning of his writing, Enoch provides an argument that he wants us to consider throughout the piece: (1) Someone who attempts…

The three resources for this week’s module focus on the element of mens rea and offer differing perspectives and insights. As mentioned during a previous class discussion, there are typically multiple elements or features necessary for something to be considered a crime. (Perhaps something like: a crime = an act…

In Harms, Wrongs, and Crimes, Simester and von Hirsch set out to identify when exactly the criminal law should be applied. …

In “Good Guys and Bad Guys,” Ekow Yankah makes the argument that the simplistic division we often make between good guys and bad guys is pervasive, and even foundational, in our culture (1022). So frequently the good guys are portrayed as heroic, perfect, and morally flawless, while the bad guys…