Complicity and Causality
This chapter continues the argument according to which the definitions of crimes may defencibly differ according to the different causal contributions made by offenders. It concentrates on the different causal contributions made, respectively, by principal offenders and by accomplices. It develops a moral argument for recognising the difference between these two types of causal contributions. According to this argument, the difference cannot but be central to our lives as moral agents. For our thinking about our moral agency requires that we recognise not only the reasons for and against our doing something, but also the reasons for and against its being done by someone else. This leads to a distinction between the reasons for and against our doing something, and the reasons for and against our contributing to the doing of that same thing by another. Some lessons are drawn out for the law, including some lessons about causality in general.
Keywords: criminal law, accomplices, causation, responsibility, agent-neutral morality, reasons
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