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Beyond Crime And Commitment: Justifying Liberty Deprivations Of The Dangerous And Responsible, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan
Beyond Crime And Commitment: Justifying Liberty Deprivations Of The Dangerous And Responsible, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan
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The traditional approaches to dangerous persons have been crime and commitment. The criminal law punishes responsible actors, and the civil law confines the mentally ill. These approaches leave a gap: The state cannot substantially restrict the liberty of responsible actors until they have committed a crime. In response to this gap, the criminal law’s boundaries have expanded to include preparatory offenses and early inchoate conduct that are deserving of only minimal, if any, punishment in attempt to incarcerate the dangerous. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s effort to articulate a test of mental disease warranting involuntary confinement of sexual predators has failed …
Self-Defense, Permissions, And The Means Principle: A Reply To Quong, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan
Self-Defense, Permissions, And The Means Principle: A Reply To Quong, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan
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In “Killing in Self-Defense” (119 Ethics 507 (2009)), Jonathan Quong claims that one may kill innocent aggressors and threats in self-defense, but he denies that it follows from his position that innocent bystanders may also be killed when one acts defensively. Quong argues that defenders have an agent-relative permission to favor their own lives over others’. However, there are moral constraints, including that one may not “use someone as a mere means,” and Quong claims that it is this constraint that prohibits the killing of innocent bystanders. To reach this conclusion, Quong construes the “means principle” quite broadly to include …