Responsibility, authority and democracy. A critical exploration of Antony Duff’s Philosophy of criminal law

Abstract

The paper explores some central aspects of Antony Duff’s program of a philosophy of criminal law, in reference to three fundamental axes, internally connected: his relational conception of responsibility, his characterization of law’s authority, and his understanding of democracy as legitimation source. Upon this basis, the paper seeks to show the instability of Duff’s appeal to the distinction between mala in se and mala prohibita, as well as the lack of plausibility of his non-proceduralistic conception of the democratic production of law.