Cambridge Legal Theory Discussion Group (CLTDG): 'Untangling the Gordian Knot of Motive'

Speaker: Levin Güver (UCL)

Motive is standardly taken to be irrelevant to criminal liability. Those that take issue with this claim usually do so on normative grounds: they argue that motive ought to be relevant to criminal liability on the basis of normative considerations such as the sympatheticness of the agent’s reasons or congruence with everyday moral judgement. In this essay, I will argue – contra Husak –that motive’s relevance to criminal liability can be derived from action-theoretic considerations as well. The nature of motive is not, as is frequently assumed, a fragmented phenomenon, but can instead be unified under the header of a single theory. I will spell out the details of such a theory and draw out its implications for criminal law.

You can find the links to Guever’s paper and to the meeting below:

The Paper: http://bit.ly/ctlg-guever-draft

The Zoom link: https://bit.ly/cltdg-michaelmas23-3

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