Introductory remarks: criminal law panel.

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Author: Ward, Cynthia V.
• Date: 01 April 2007

INTRODUCTION

The topic of Law and Morality is a capacious one, and the essays on this Panel approach it from different corners of a very large tent. In The Role of Moral Philosophers in the Competition Between Deontological and Empirical Desert, Paul Robinson wonders not so much about the role of morality, but about the role of moral philosophy, in resolving some of the long-contested issues that beset the law of crime. Acknowledging the importance of desert as a justification for criminal punishment, Professor Robinson envisions a competition between two subconceptions: deontological desert, according to which blameworthiness is assessed by reference to acontextual principles of right and good; and empirical desert, which grounds judgments about blameworthiness in the actual intuitions of citizens, as collected and evaluated using the methods of social...