Causation

Abstract

This chapter focuses on causation. Causation doctrines govern the connection between a person’s behaviour and the consequence elements, if any, of an offence. They articulate the paradigm route by which responsibility for those consequences can be ascribed to the person. The chapter provides an account of causation in the criminal law that points toward some natural-world property that it (in part) rests upon, and which shows how that property is capable of bearing the moral freight that causation doctrines must carry. The account seeks to reconcile the tension between pre- and post-legal notions of causation, finding a place for the law’s morally sensitive causation doctrines. In so doing, it helps to explain what criminal and tortious causation must have in common, and where space exists for their causal doctrines to diverge. Finally, the chapter sets out three major threads of causation: direct causation, indirect causation, and causation via omissions or other non-interventions.