Do We Need a Doctrine of Complicity?
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
4-1-2016
Abstract
One of the many provocative claims made in Michael Moore’s path-breaking book Causation and Responsibility is that once the concept of causation is properly interpreted, criminal law will be able to dispense with the doctrine of complicity. All accomplices who deserve to be held responsible can be held responsible under a suitably reformed causal approach. This chapter seeks to explore whether that really holds true by examining cases of coordination and drawing on cooperative utilitarianism. Ultimately, this chapter suggests that there is in fact a range of quite interesting cases in which only a doctrine of complicity can achieve the desired result.
Keywords
responsibility, criminal law, cooperative utilitarianism, complicity, causation
Publication Title
Legal, Moral, and Metaphysical Truths: The Philosophy of Michael S. Moore
Repository Citation
Katz, Leo, "Do We Need a Doctrine of Complicity?" (2016). Book Chapters. 74.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_chapters/74
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198703242.003.0009
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198703242.003.0009