A large number of people are serving sentences not for completing crimes, but for trying to. The law governing attempted crimes, then, is of practical importance, but the questions that arise in the adjudication of attempts also intersect with questions addressed by the philosophy of action, such as what intention a person must have, if any, and what a person must do, if anything, in order to be trying to do something. This book offers solutions to a variety of difficult problems that courts face in the adjudication of attempted crimes through application of the philosophy of action. The book ... More

A large number of people are serving sentences not for completing crimes, but for trying to. The law governing attempted crimes, then, is of practical importance, but the questions that arise in the adjudication of attempts also intersect with questions addressed by the philosophy of action, such as what intention a person must have, if any, and what a person must do, if anything, in order to be trying to do something. This book offers solutions to a variety of difficult problems that courts face in the adjudication of attempted crimes through application of the philosophy of action. The book argues that the problems that courts face admit of principled solution through reflection on either (i) what it is to try to do something, (ii) what evidence is required for someone to be shown to have tried to do something, or (iii) what sentence for an attempt is fair, given the close relation between attempts and completions. The book proposes an account of the nature of trying to act, called “The Guiding Commitment View”, and uses that account to make progress on problems courts face. Under this account, to try to do something is to be committed by one's intention to each of the components of success, and to be guided by those commitments. It is argued that when the implications of this simple and intuitively plausible position are appreciated, we are able to recognize principled grounds on which the courts ought to distinguish between defendants charged with attempted crimes.