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The Neuropsychology Of Justifications And Excuses: Some Problematic Cases Of Self-Defense, Duress And Provocation, Theodore Y. Blumoff

Theodore Y. Blumoff

In a famous address to the Aristotelian Society, Professor J. L. Austin provided dictum that has become a part of the conventional wisdom in the jurisprudence of our criminal law. His thesis simultaneously acknowledges the evident moral distinction between justifications and excuses, on the one hand, and the tendency, on the other, for the two doctrines to overlap and confound. From the perspectives of moral philosophy and jurisprudence, the distinction is clear. Justifications are socially approved (or, at least, not disapproved); excuses are not approved, but they obtain because the actor’s conduct reflects a substantial (and therefore judicially acknowledged) cognitive …