7 Apr 2016 - 8 Apr 2016 | All day | CRASSH (SG1&2), Alison Richard Building, 7 West Road, CB3 9DT |
- Description
- Programme
Description
Registration is now open.
Conveners
Matthew Kramer (University of Cambridge)
Matt Matravers (University of York)
Claes Lernestedt (University of Stockholm)
Marianne Kristiansson (Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm)
Summary
The idea of the responsible subject is central to the workings and legitimacy of the criminal law, for the criminal law blames and punishes. To hold people to account, to blame and to punish them for their actions, presupposes that they are responsible. Yet the notion of responsibility has long been a contested one.
In the past, the criminal law has extended its punitive reach to children and non-human animals in violation of the underlying claim that it is only fair to blame and to punish those who have the capacities to understand and to guide their actions in accordance with the law’s demands. This claim about fairness is increasingly challenged by those who seek to explain human behaviour in terms of underlying causes (of whatever kind). They have argued that once we understand how human beings “work”, we will see that they are not responsible in the way that is needed to warrant blame and punishment.
In this conference, the participants will be seeking to understand the conception of the responsible agent in the criminal law, in order to assess it critically and to offer an account of how it ought to be characterised. Only through a proper understanding of that conception will we be in a position to judge whether the recent challenges to it by neuroscientists and others are fatal or not.
Sponsors
Supported by the Centre for Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CRASSH).
Accommodation for speakers selected through the call for papers and non-paper giving delegates
We are unable to arrange or book accommodation; however, the following websites may be of help:
Visit Cambridge
Cambridge Rooms
University of Cambridge accommodation webpage
Administrative assistance: events@crassh.cam.ac.uk
Programme
Day 1 - Thursday 7 April 2016 | |
10.30 | Registration (Tea and Coffee) |
11.00 - 11.15 | Welcome |
11.15 - 12.45 | Richard Holton (University of Cambridge): Primitive Crime Chair: Michael Moore (University of Illinois) |
12.45 - 13.45 | Lunch |
13.45 - 15.15 | Alan Norrie: Criminal Justice and the Blaming Relation Chair: Ambrose Lee (University of Oxford) |
15.15 - 15.45 | Tea and Coffee |
15.45 - 16.30 | Marianne Kristiansson (Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm) and Claes Lernestedt (University of Stockholm): Who decides? Chair: Kai Hamdorf |
16.45 - 18.30 | Round Table: Medical versus Legal Models of Insanity
|
Day 2 - Friday 8 April 2016 | |
9.30 - 11.00 | Susanna Blumenthal (University of Minnesota): Consciousness and Responsibility in American Legal Culture Chair: Malcolm Thorburn (University of Toronto) |
11.00 - 11.30 | Tea and Coffee |
11.30 - 13.00 | Jules Holroyd (University of Sheffield): Criminal Law’s Actual and Reasonable Persons Chair: Matthew Kramer (University of Cambridge) |
13.00 - 14.00 | Lunch |
14.00 - 15.30 | Round Table: Neuroscience and Criminal Law |
15.30 | Close |