Academic

Ferzan on Sher on Responsibility without Awareness

By Lawrence Solum

Kim Ferzan writes about George Sher's Who Knew?  Responsibility Without Awareness on Jotwell.  Here is a taste:

George Sher?s book defends [the view] that we can be responsible without being aware. Although I do not believe that this book ultimately undermines my concerns about punishing the negligent, it refines the state of the debate. It is beautifully argued and carefully constructed. Criminal law theorists truly ought to read this book.

Sher?s foil is the ?searchlight view.? When an agent performs an action, she is conscious of some potential consequences ? those consequences are the ones on which the beam of light shines. However, the beam may also be too dim or too narrow to illuminate all the consequences and aspects of the act. The searchlight view rejects that we can be responsible for those aspects and consequences of which we are not conscious (or at least passively aware).

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on October 11, 2010 (boomark / email).