Self, Others and the State
Relations of Criminal Responsibility

An original analysis and in-depth historical examination of criminal responsibility in the context of Australian criminal law.

Arlie Loughnan (Author)

9781108497602, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 December 2019

352 pages
25.2 x 17.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.69 kg

'Arlie Loughnan's Self, Others and the State is an important and fundamental analysis of criminal law: how its thinking has been shaped, its principles established, its organization created and justified and the role of criminal responsibility in each of these dimensions of the discipline. It offers a direct and effective challenge to the prevailing scholarship.' Ngaire Naffine, Journal of Legal Philosophy

Criminal responsibility is now central to criminal law, but it is in need of re-examination. In the context of Australian criminal laws, Self, Others and the State reassesses the general assumptions made about the rise to prominence of criminal responsibility in the period since around the turn of the twentieth century. It reconsiders the role of criminal responsibility in criminal law, arguing that criminal responsibility is significant because it organises key sets of relations - between self, others and the state - as relations of responsibility. Detailed studies of decisive moments and developments since the turn of the twentieth century, and original explorations of relations of responsibility, expose the complexity and dynamism of criminal responsibility and reveal that it is the means by which matters of subjectivity, relationality and power make themselves felt in the criminal law.

Introduction
Part I. Rethinking Criminal Responsibility: 1. Space and time in criminal responsibility
2. The significance of criminal responsibility
Part II. Responsibility in Criminal Law: 3. Modernisation of form and process: criminal responsibility at the turn of the twentieth century
4. The 'birth' of Australian criminal law: the role of criminal responsibility in the mid-century
5. Peak responsibility?: Codifying criminal responsibility in the late twentieth century
Part III. Criminal Responsibility in Relation: 6. Self
7. Others
8. State
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Criminal law & procedure [LNF], Legal history [LAZ], Criminology: legal aspects [LAR], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], Crime & criminology [JKV], Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM]