Jørn Jacobsen

Philosophy, Theory and Criminal Law

This book is a collection of articles produced by a number of Canadian authors. Sixteen authors have contributed to the collection of fifteen articles covering a wide range of subjects. In the following, I will give an overview of the articles before I add some reflections on the book and its strengths and weaknesses. The first part of this review is descriptive in a somewhat extensive manner. This description is however of importance for the comments on the book as a whole. The space available does not allow for a substantial evaluation and critique of each different contribution. Also, it should be said, for a detailed evaluation of all the texts a criminal law scholar with really broad and deep knowledge would be required (which is not me). Let me therefore also stress that the examples in the following are selected due to their capacity to illustrate general points; there is no suggestion that they are regarded as the ones most worthy of critique. Following a very brief preface (two pages including acknowledgements), the book consists of three sections. The first part, titled ‘Rethinking the Philosophical Foundations of Substantive Domestic Criminal Law’, covers eight articles and more than half the book’s pages. It is also divided into two subsections. The first of these two subsections, ‘The Legitimate Scope of Criminal Law and the Methodology of Criminal Law Theory’, contains the following contributions. Malcom Thorburn discusses ‘Two Conceptions of Equality before the (Criminal) Law’, in particular in regard to justification defences in criminal law. Thorburn contrasts a ‘Diceyan’ and a ‘Kantian’ conception of equality. Arguing for the relevance of a ‘Kantian’ conception, he also challenges the position of John Gardner when it basically comes to the relation between the legal status of private individuals and public officials and its explanation. François Tanguay-Renaud’s contribution, ‘Indi-