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64 Calif. L. Rev. 871 (1976)
Respect for Life and Regard for Rights in the Criminal Law

handle is hein.journals/calr64 and id is 884 raw text is: California Law Review VOL. 64 JuLY 1976 No. 4 Respect for Life and Regard for Rights in the Criminal Law* Sanford H. Kadisht In this essay Dean Kadish searches for underlying principles that ex- plain the pattern of rules of the criminal law governing when life may be taken. Finding neither the sanctity of life nor any other single general principle sufficient, he looks more particularly for narrower principles identifiable in discreet categories of rules; specifically those governing intentional killings of aggressors, intentional killings of by-, standers, omissions and unintended killings. He identifies a number of principles and policies, several in acute tension and conflict, in- cluding the right to resist aggression, the principles of autonomy and proportionality and the calculus of social advantage. He concludes by illustrating how these principles bear on some of the more contro- versial questions of life and death confronting the criminal law today. Life is a unique kind of good because it is the necessary condition for the enjoyment of all other goods. Therefore, every person by and large tends to value his life preeminently, and any society must place a high value on preserving it. As Professor Hart observed, our con- cern is with social arrangements for continued existence, not with those of a suicide club.' But while the aim of survival affords a reason why . . . law and morals should include a specific content,'2 it obvi- ously does not afford a reason why that content should include placing the survival of every person above all else. For although we value our Copyright @ 1976, Sanford H. Kadish * This Article is based on the Thalheimer Lecture delivered at Johns Hopkins University, April 24, 1975, and will appear in the volume comprising the 1975 Thal- heimer Lectures to be published by Johns Hopkins University Press, entitled, REspEcr FOR LIFE IN MEDICINE, PlILosoPHY, AmD THE LAW. t- Dean and Morrison Professor of Law, School of Law, University of California, Berkeley. 1. H.L.A. HART, THE CoNcEPT OF LAW 188 (1961). 2. Id. at 189 (emphasis deleted).

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