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A Fair Criminal Law offers a political philosophical theory of criminal law suitable for a substantively and procedurally liberal, democratic, socially just state. Drawing on post-metaphysical political philosophy and taking a constructivist, and largely revisionist, approach the book pursues three aims.
First, it offers a theory of criminalisation, that is, an account of the reasons for which a State may respond to breaches of duties in a distinct way (which, as the book will argue may or may not be punishment as we currently understand it). Secondly, it outlines the conditions of criminal responsibility appropriate for and reflecting the foundations of social democratic liberalism. Thirdly, it gives a tentative account of three areas of criminalisation corresponding to bundles of political duties, which a social democratic state is likely to have to adopt, namely violations of others' physical and psychological integrity, violations of others' rights of participation in the political process, and violations of property rights and interests.
