Criminal Attempts

This original treatment of the law of criminal attempts sets some of the problems about attempts in the context of deeper issues about the foundations of criminal liability. Duff begins with some persisting questions about the law of attempts. What should count as a criminal attempt? How severely should attempts be punished? Are there types of 'impossible attempt' which should not be criminal? These questions lead on to larger issues about the foundations of criminal liability. Why should we have a law of inchoate or nonconsummated crimes; and why should that law be a law of attempts? Should criminal liability be determined by purely 'subjective' criteria (for instance by the intentions and beliefs with which the agent acted); or should it also depend on the 'objective' or actual impact of his action on the world? Such questions lead to yet larger questions in the philosophy of action and in moral philosophy; about the nature of action, about culpability, about the significance of 'moral luck'. Duff articulates and defends an 'objectivist' account of criminal liability against the 'subjectivist' tendencies of much contemporary legal theory; and this account offers persuasive answers to the problems with which the book began.