The Moralist Strikes Back

Abstract

Whereas within the context of some general debates such as that opposing liberals and communitarians it is not clear that liberalism is the best option, within the specific context of the criminal law it is hard to defend anything other than liberalism. Within the context of the criminal law, the main opponent of liberalism has been moralism. Although one would have thought that moralism had by now been sufficiently discredited, some of the most able and influential contemporary criminal law theorists have decided to defend versions or aspects of moralism. In this paper I argue that these defenses of moralism ought to be rejected.