Emergencies and criminal law in Kant’s legal philosophy.

Autores

  • Thomas Mertens Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen The Netherlands

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5007/1677-2954.2017v16n3p459

Resumo

Despite Kant's explicit statement that every murderer must suffer death, there are at least four situations to be found in Kant's work in which the killing of a human being should not lead to the death penalty: when too many murderers are involved; when a mother kills her illegitimate child; when one duellist kills the other; when one person pushes another off a plank in order to save his life. This paper discusses these situation and concentrates on the last situation - Kant's interpretation of the plank of Carneades – with an eye to what they learn us about Kant understanding of the law. Does Kant acknowledge a legal vacuum? In order to come to a conclusion, Kant's 'solution' of the plank is compared with those suggested by other authors, such as Cicero, Pufendorf and Lon Fuller in his famous 'speluncean explorers' case.

 

Referências

Appiah, Kwame A. The Honor Code. How Moral Revolutions Happen. New York: Norton, 2010.

Barnes, Julian. A History of the World in 10½ Chapters, London: Jonathan Cape 1989.

Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69). At: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/blackstone.asp

Brandt, Reinhard. Kants Forderung der Todesstrafe bei Duell- und Kindesmord. In: H. Brunkhorst, P. Niessen (eds.), Das Recht der Republik. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1999, 268-287

Cicero, On Duties. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Cohan, John A. Homicide by Necessity. Chapham Law Review, 10, 2006, 120-185

Finkelstein, Claire O. Two Men and a Plank. Legal Theory, 7, 2001, 279-306.

Fuller, Lon L. The Case of the Speluncean Explorers. Harvard Law Review 62, 1949, 616-645.

Grotius, Hugo. De Iure Belli ac Pacis. At: http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/grotius-the-rights-of-war-and-peace-2005-ed-3-vols

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Kant, Immanuel. Practical Philosophy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996

Kant, Immanuel. Political Writings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

Mertens, Thomas. Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals: a conversation with my student. Studi Kantiani, 29, 2016, 21-40.

Mertens, Thomas. On Kant’s duty to speak the truth. Kantian Review, 21, 2016, 27-51.

Offermans, Cyrille. Schipbreuk. Amsterdam: Cossee, 2008.

Pufendorf, Samuel. Of the Duty of Man and Citizen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991

Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica. At: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/

Waldron, Jeremy. Kant’s Legal Positivism. Harvard Law Review, 109, 1996, 1535-1566.

Cases:

R. v. Dudley and Stephens (1884), 14 QBD 273

U.S. v. Holmes (1842), 25 Fed.Cas. 360.

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Publicado

2017-12-01

Edição

v. 16 n. 3 (2017): Special Issue on "Kant's Metaphysics of Morals as Guidance in a Morally and Legally Complex World"

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Artigos

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