Dignity and criminal law
Creators: name: Babcock, David Harlan
Publisher: name: University of Iowa
Year: 2022
Subjects: Dignity
public abstract
Criminal Law

description: ABSTRACT
description: One important requirement of criminal law is that it is able to be understood by individuals, so they are able to direct their behavior in order to avoid law’s punishment. At a minimum, this requires that the meaning of the terms used in law are used with consistency. Therefore, because I intend to give a limited description of criminal law, I first need to fully define how I use some important terms. Because my description is meant to be consistent with current law, I derive the meanings of these terms from their use in current western liberal jurisprudence and legal practice. The description I intend to give is an explanation of how criminal law purports to regulate individual behavior, primarily with the use of punishment, while simultaneously respecting individual dignity, two seemingly contradictory goals. It is an explanation in the limited sense that it both describes the workings of criminal law, and is also, at least sometimes, able to constrain current practices. This is so because, ‘dignity’, as used in law, refers to an inherent worth of individuals which entails recognition and respect. This, however, is not to say that the content of law, i.e., what parades as respect for individual dignity, is determined by the dignity of individuals, but rather, that law, in recognizing the worth of individuals commits itself to respecting this worth. What counts as respecting individual dignity depends on and is determined by other characteristics of the individual. Criminal law only punishes individuals who possess the capability of directing their behavior based on pertinent reasons; thus, one way in which law respects the worth of these individuals is by not interfering in their self-direction, at least without strong justification.
description: Western liberal law is often described as self-applied. That is, law consists of published behavioral norms and attached consequences with which individuals are expected to direct their behavior. The “regulation” of a law that is self-applied can only be explained by its ability to influence an individual’s choice of behavior. We can describe law as influencing (and thus regulating) behavior when an individual truthfully cites the law as the (or a) reason they complied with the norms contained in law. When the individual chooses to violate the norm, they are also choosing the consequence of that violation. The law can then be described as regulating behavior, i.e., it influences individual behavior by providing a reason to act in a certain way and can also be seen as respecting dignity because it honors their choice of behavior, and with it any attached consequences.
description: The worth of dignity and its entailed respect provides grounds for evaluations of criminal law and its practices. There are, of course, many other targets with which we evaluate law, e.g., justice, fairness, or its ability to influence behavior. The more fully a law respects individual dignity, the stronger is its justification for inclusion in a western liberal system of criminal law.