DANCEST 805 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Arson, Consequentialism, Judicial Interpretation
Document Summary
7. 1 introduction: the nature and function of criminal law. There exists no ready-made formula by which we can determine whether criminal law should be used in a certain situation. There is no single master principle from which the content of criminal law can be derived. Thus, they are problematic to lead the legal debate. The attribution of liability generally requires an analysis of two aspects: actus reus, the objective element of the crime, e. g. murder. The actus reus consists of killing another person: there are different doctrines. Which one dominates, can be determined on the two main forms of intention: direct intent, strong volitional element, where the consequence of an intention is desired, e. g. John shoots mike because he wants to kill him. John burns down his house in order to collect the insurance money. However, he knows that his grandmother is upstairs asleep, but still burns the house down.
