Excuses and Dispositions in Criminal Law

Abstract

What do criminal laws prohibit? A series of immoral or harmful acts? Or does the law also seek to prohibit performing those acts for certain reasons, acting on certain motives, or acting on the basis of certain character traits? In short, does the law look only at the quality of the act the defendant performs? Or does it look more broadly at whether the person who performed the prohibited act was righteous or ignoble, well-meaning or malign? The traditional view says that the criminal law focuses uniquely on acts. According to that view, character and motive are irrelevant to criminal liability. They are not relevant to the actus reus, since they merely serve to identify the prohibited conduct. And they are not relevant