About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

37 Ariz. L. Rev. 251 (1995)
Duress: A Philosophical Account of the Defense in Law

handle is hein.journals/arz37 and id is 267 raw text is: DURESS: A PHILOSOPHICAL ACCOUNT OF THE DEFENSE IN LAW Claire 0. Finkelstein* Table of Contents I. Introduction .................................................................................. 251 II. The Elements of the Duress Defense ............................................... 253 III. The W elfarist Conception .............................................................. 257 A. The Act-Utilitarian Version .............................................. 258 B. The Rule-Utilitarian Version ............................................ 262 IV. The Voluntarist Conception ............................................................ 265 A. The Pure Voluntarist Position ........................................... 266 B. Hybrid Approaches .......................................................... 268 V. Duress and the Nature of Responsibility .......................................... 270 VI. The Role of Dispositions ................................................................ 275 V II. Conclusion ................................................................................... 282 I. INTRODUCTION J.L. Austin expresses the common understanding of the distinction between justifications and excuses, respectively, when he says: In the one defense.. .we accept responsibility but deny that it was bad: in the other, we admit that it was bad but don't accept full, or even any, responsibility.' This way of dividing up the terrain leaves out a possibility: we accept responsibility for the deed, admit that it was bad, but argue that our behavior was understandable under the circumstances and that we should therefore not be punished. This Article will argue that the criminal law's defense of duress per minas belongs in this third category, and that the category marks out a species of excuse. Duress is most often, however, understood in terms of one or the other of the surrounding categories, thus being thought to be either a justification or a denial of the voluntariness of the agent's conduct. * Visiting Scholar, Brooklyn Law School; J.D., Yale Law School; Ph.D. candidate, University of Pittsburgh Philosophy Department. The author wishes to thank Kurt Baier, Peter Detre, George Fletcher, David Gauthier, Jeffrie Murphy, Kate Stith, and Michael Thompson for their helpful comments on various drafts and for illuminating discussions on the topic of this Article. 1. JOHN L. AUSTIN, A Plea for Excuses, in PHILOSOPHICAL PAPERS 175, 176 (3d ed. 1979). /

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most