Title

Defensive Liability Without Culpability

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

Abstract

A minimally responsible threatener is someone who bears some responsibility for imposing an objectively wrongful threat, but whose responsibility does not rise to the level of culpability. Minimally responsible threateners include those who knowingly commit a wrongful harm under duress, those who are epistemically justified but mistaken in their belief that a morally risky activity will not cause a wrongful harm, and those who commit a harm while suffering from a cognitive impairment which makes it prohibitively difficult to recognize and act on what is morally required of them. The chapter argues that minimally responsible threateners can indeed be morally liable for the harms they impose. Put differently, culpability is not a necessary basis for liability.

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