Special Feature: Criminal Law’s Fundamentals – Nuance and Morality in the Criminal Law
Matt Matravers
Citation: [2025] Sing JLS 80
First view: [Mar 2025 Online] Sing JLS 1-12
In this paper, I offer some thoughts inspired by Andrew Simester’s magisterial book, Fundamentals of Criminal Law. The starting point is Simester’s account of culpability as grounded in moral vice. The initial parts of the paper examine this account, and the language of “morality” and “vice” contained within it. Of particular concern is the legitimising role of invocations of morality and the complexities that come with that role. The latter parts of the paper raise two puzzles and examine their implications: the first is when moral judgements and legal judgements of blameworthiness come apart; the second when there is a gap between crime seriousness and individual culpability. Both puzzles allow us to tease out aspects of Simester’s theory and their implications for sentencing.