Table of Contents

1: A Theory of Criminal Law Theories
Part One: THE THEORY OF PUNISHMENT
2: Closet Retributivism
3: The Moral Worth of Retribution
Part Two: THE THEORY OF RESPONSIBILITY
4: The Place of Moral Theory in the Criminal Law
Part Three: THE THEORIES OF ACTION, INTENTION, CAUSATION, JUSTIFICATION, AND EXCUSE
A) THE NATURE OF HUMAN ACTION
5: The Nature of Basic and Complex Actions
B) THE NATURE OF MENTAL STATES
6: Mind, Brain and the Unconscious
7: Intentions and Mens Rea
C) THE NATURE OF CAUSATION
8: Thomson's Preliminaries about Causation and Rights
D) THE NATURE OF JUSTIFICATION
9: Torture and the Balance of Evils
E) THE NATURE OF EXCUSE
10: Mental Illness and Responsibility
11: Causation and the Excuses
12: Choice, Character and Excuse
Part Four: THE THEORY OF PERSONHOOD
13: The Moral and Metaphysical Sources of the Criminal Law
Part Five: PRINCIPLES OF THE SPECIAL PART
14: The Limits of Legislation
15: Sandelian Anti-Liberalism
16: Privacy and the Constitutional Limits on Criminal Legislation
17: Legality and Privacy Applied: Vagueness, Proportionality, Homosexuals in Schools, and Abortion

Reviews

`The high-point of Moore's exposition ... is a fine and psychologically penetrating defense of subjective moral institutions and emotions as 'heuristic indicators' of moral truths.'
Books and Culture, July/Aug. 2000.
`In an elegant and masterly introductory essay, laying out in order all the tasks of a theory of criminal law, he pleads that any 'deep theory' of the way law operates must take a moral point of view and be founded on moral institutions.'
Books and Culture, July/Aug. 2000.
This book belongs on the shelves of every serious criminal law theorist and every research library in the world./ M. M. Feeley, University of California, Berkeley, Choice, Feb 1999, Vol 36, no. 6
`The book has four particular qualities which mark it out as a distinctive contribution to criminal law theory... its scope is remarkably broad. Furthermore, Moore brings an unusual combination of disciplinary perspectives to bear on the wide range of questions which he considers. Moore is also unusual in giving the emotions a central place in his theory of criminal law. One has to admire the originality of Moore's position. He is a trenchant
anti-consequentialist in ethics who nonetheless provides a careful analysis of teh proper role of consequential arguments in shaping criminal law.'
Nicola Lacey, The Modern Law Review
...the book works mainly as a collection of essays, written over the past twenty years, on topics in criminal theory. As such, it has real strengths./ ... these are high-quality essays by a considerable figure, and should be read by anyone interested in criminal theory who has not done so already./ A. P. Simester, The Cambridge Law Journal, 1998.