Freedom, Mens Rea, and Blame (Mayson/Walen)
Faculty
|
|
| Sandra Gabriel Mayson Professor of Law sgmayson@law.upenn.edu |
Additional Information
Skills Training
Oral Presentations
Other Professional Skills: Careful analytical and conceptual reasoning.
Grading
25% Participation,
65% Paper,
10% Other (Each class, a student (or students) will be assigned to present and comment on the readings assigned for that class as a means of launching class discussion. This oral presentation is worth 10% of students' final grade in the course.)
Yes
Notify Professor Mayson promptly after the close of the Add/Drop period if you wish to use the final paper for this course to satisfy the Senior Writing Requirement.
Class meets in person.
Course Continuity
Students are encouraged to stay home if you are ill or experience flu-like symptoms. If you miss a class for any reason, it is still your responsibility to make up the work missed.
I offer the following to students who miss class due to illness:
- Class sessions are regularly recorded. If you are absent due to illness or some other unavoidable circumstance, email me and I can send you an email with instructions for accessing the recording for the class session(s) you missed.
- I will make PowerPoint slides or other class materials routinely available on the course site to everyone in the class.
Meeting Times/Location
M 4:30PM - 7:15PM
Silverman Hall 270
Category
Seminar
Credits
3.0
What sort of freedom of the will must we have for the criminal law to make sense, and do we have it? What sorts of mental states (mens rea) are relevant to degrees of culpability (blameworthiness), and how and why are they relevant? What does it mean to blame and how is moral blame relevant to criminal punishment? The concepts of “free will,” mens rea, and blame anchor and animate contemporary criminal law in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions (including the U.K., much if not all of Western Europe, and Latin America), but there are deep disagreements about how best to understand these concepts, and on what role they ought to play in criminal law and legal process. This cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary seminar will explore and critique cutting-edge philosophical scholarship engaging with these three deeply related topics.
Co-taught by Professor of Law Sandra Mayson (Penn) and Professor of Law and Philosophy Alec Walen (Rutgers), the course is open to both Penn Carey Law students and graduate students in philosophy at Rutgers. (Advanced undergraduate students in philosophy and graduate students in other fields at Rutgers may be admitted on a case-by-case basis.) We will meet once in person at Penn, once in person at Rutgers-New Brunswick, and otherwise in a hybrid format where students at each institution gather in person and the two groups interact by Zoom. On weeks when only one institution is in session, the students at that institution will meet separately. Throughout the course, students are expected to read assigned materials thoroughly and engage actively in class discussion. Several classes will include guest presentations by a scholar whose work we have assigned, and students are expected to bring well formulated questions for the guest speaker. Law student grades will be based on class participation, a class presentation, and a final paper on a topic of the student’s choosing.
Prerequisites for law students: 1L Criminal Law (or the equivalent at a non-U.S. law school); prior coursework or strong interest in philosophy / legal theory.
Criminal Law and Procedure Learning outcomes: Demonstrate a core understanding of criminal law and procedure; Perform legal analysis in the context of criminal law and procedure; Communicate effectively on topics related to criminal law and procedure; Demonstrate an understanding of the role criminal law and procedure play in society and their impact on other areas of law and society.