The Irrelevance of Motive and the Rule of Law

IF 0.4 Q2 Social Sciences
Shachar Eldar, Elkana Laist
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引用次数: 3

Abstract

One of the maxims of criminal law orthodoxy states that a defendant’s motive for offending, be it good or bad, should have no weight in assessing his or her criminal liability – although it may rightfully bear on the punishment imposed. Known as the “irrelevance of motive principle”, this idea owes much of its popular stature in legal thinking to arguments that draw on the notion of the rule of law. It is said that allowing defendants’ motives to generate or negate their criminal liability would undermine the state’s authority in defining the contours of crime. The article identifies and critically examines three streams of such arguments, and these in turn lead to three findings. First, each manifestation of the rule of law argument defends a somewhat different conception of the irrelevance principle; this means that despite the common allusion to “the” irrelevance principle, there is no singular principle, but instead several variants of the norm are at play. Secondly, rule of law arguments fail to sustain any meaningful notion of the irrelevance principle. Finally, there exists a sphere of instances where the careful application of motives to criminal directives may actually advance the rule of law by infusing legislation with added clarity and richness.
动机与法治的无关性
刑法正统的一条格言指出,被告的犯罪动机,无论是好是坏,在评估其刑事责任时都不应该有分量——尽管它可能合理地影响到所施加的惩罚。这一观点被称为“动机原则的无关性”,它在法律思想中广受欢迎的地位在很大程度上归功于利用法治概念的论点。据说,允许被告的动机产生或否定其刑事责任将破坏国家在界定犯罪轮廓方面的权威。本文确定并批判性地考察了这类论点的三个流派,而这些又导致了三个发现。首先,法治论证的每一种表现形式都在捍卫不相关原则的不同概念;这意味着,尽管人们经常提到“不相关原则”,但并不存在单一的原则,而是规范的几种变体在起作用。其次,关于法治的论证无法支撑任何有关无关原则的有意义的概念。最后,在某些情况下,谨慎地将动机适用于刑事指令实际上可以通过使立法更加明确和丰富而促进法治。
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来源期刊
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期刊介绍: Focused on examinations of crime and punishment in domestic, transnational, and international contexts, New Criminal Law Review provides timely, innovative commentary and in-depth scholarly analyses on a wide range of criminal law topics. The journal encourages a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches and is a crucial resource for criminal law professionals in both academia and the criminal justice system. The journal publishes thematic forum sections and special issues, full-length peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, and occasional correspondence.
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