This is the first comprehensive handbook in the philosophy of criminal law. It contains seventeen original essays by leading thinkers in the field and covers the field's major topics including limits to criminalization, obscenity and hate speech, blackmail, the law of rape, attempts, accomplice liability, causation, responsibility, justification and excuse, duress, provocation and self-defense, insanity, punishment, the death penalty, mercy, and preventive detention and other alternatives to punishment. It will be an invaluable resource for scholars and students whose research and studies concern philosophical issues in criminal law and criminal law theory.

John Deigh

John Deigh is Professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of three books, The Sources of Moral Agency , Emotions, Values, and the Law , and An Introduction to Ethics. He was the editor of Ethicsfrom 1997 to 2008. David Dolinko is Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests focus on the philosophical underpinnings of criminal law. He has published articles on retributivism, capital punishment, and the privilege against self-incrimination.

Contributors:

Gerald Dworkin

L. W. Sumner

Mitchell Berman

Douglas Husak

Andrew Ashworth

Christopher Kutz

Michael Moore

John Deigh

Larry Alexander

Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

Joshua Dressler

Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Ken Levy

Marcia Baron

David Dolinko

Carol Steiker

R. A. Duff

Stephen P. Garvey