Causation and Criminal Responsibility

Firkins, Grant (2025) Causation and Criminal Responsibility. In: Causation in Criminal Law: A Research Companion. Routledge. ISBN 9781032759920 (Accepted for Publication)

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Abstract

There are current conflicting debates in criminal-law and philosophical literature about the relationship between causation and moral responsibility. This chapter seeks to map those debates, scrutinise the relationship between causation and moral responsibility, and highlight the role causation should play in criminal-responsibility ascription for result crimes. It argues that there is a conceptual distinction between moral responsibility and causal responsibility: In our moral-responsibility judgements, fault or blame is ascribed to an individual for something when it is appropriate to have some negative reaction towards them because of some type of control and defective exercise of that control, exhibited in their conduct; however, causal responsibility should be understood as an ascription of responsibility simply when one event causes another.
Moral responsibility and causal responsibility are also disconnected from one another – moral responsibility is irrelevant to causal findings, and causation does not affect moral responsibility for outcomes. It contends that distinguishing causal responsibility from moral responsibility is important in criminal law because both notions are required to appropriately determine overall criminal responsibility for result crimes: Causal responsibility establishes an individual’s actual wrongdoing, whereas moral responsibility determines blameworthiness for that wrongdoing.
Therefore, causation should play a distinct and important role in criminal-responsibility ascription for result crimes.

Item Type:	Book Section
Faculty / Department:	Faculty of Business, Law and Criminology > School of Law and Criminology
Depositing User:	Grant Firkins
Date Deposited:	24 Jul 2025 15:27
Last Modified:	24 Jul 2025 15:27
URI:	https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/4724

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