Bad Acts and Guilty Minds: Conundrums of the Criminal Law - Paperback

by Leo Katz (Author)

With wit and intelligence, Leo Katz seeks to understand the basic rules and concepts underlying the moral, linguistic, and psychological puzzles that plague the criminal law.

"Bad Acts and Guilty Minds . . . revives the mind, it challenges superficial analyses, it reminds us that underlying the vast body of statutory and case law, there is a rationale founded in basic notions of fairness and reason. . . . It will help lawyers to better serve their clients and the society that permits attorneys to hang out their shingles."-Edward N. Costikyan, New York Times Book Review

Back Jacket

With with and intelligence, Leo Katz seeks to understand the basic rules and concepts underlying these moral, linguistic, and psychological puzzles that plague the criminal law. Drawing on insights from analytical philosophy and psychology, he brings order into the seemingly endless multiplicity of these puzzles; many of them turn out to be variations of a few basic philosophical problems, making their appearance in different guises. To test his arguments, Katz moves far beyond the traditional body of exemplary criminal law cases. He brings into view the decision of common law judges in colonial and postcolonial Africa, famous cases such as the Nuremberg trials, Aaron Burr's treason, and ABSCAM, as well as well-known incidents in fiction.