Generalisations, causal relationships and moral responsibility
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12595641 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Federico Picinali (0000-0001-5085-9700, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 121-135 |
| Publication date | 2016-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of Evidence & Proof (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1365-7127 • E-ISSN: 1740-5572 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1365712716628539 |
| OpenAlex | W2306332250 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 4 |
In Chapter 4 of his book Character in the Criminal Trial, Mike Redmayne addresses a series of non-epistemic arguments against the use of bad character evidence. Redmayne is particularly successful in debunking arguments focusing on the defendant’s autonomy. Inspired by the early drafts of Chapter 4—which I had the honour to read—I published an article trying to contribute to the debate. At the time of writing, however, I was not aware of a beguiling argument concerning the use of behavioural generalisations, formulated and defended by Amit Pundik in a recent research paper. According to this argument, we should not prove guilt using generalisations that presuppose a causal relationship between an antecedent factor and individual behaviour, if this relationship negates the freedom of the individual under any theory about determinism and free will that one may adopt—be it a libertarian or a compatibilist theory. In this article I critically assess this argument and attempt to show that it does not succeed
Antecedent (behavioral psychology · Argument (complex analysis · Autonomy · Character (mathematics · Compatibilism · Determinism · Epistemology · Free will · Honour · Incompatibilism · Moral responsibility · Political science · Sociology · Free Will and Agency · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Social Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,33 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2023 (7) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |