Seminar with Sandra Marshall (Professor Emerita of Philosophy, University of Stirling)

You only Have Yourself to Blame: Victims, Self-Endangerment, and the Criminal Law

The seminar will be a hybrid meeting. It will be held in Sala Audytoryjna in Pałac Larischa (Bracka 12) and on Teams on October 25, 2022 (Tuesday, 17:30 CEST). 

Abstract:

Victims are not always passive recipients of harm: sometimes those who suffer misfortune have, we might reasonably say, ‘brought it upon themselves’. They might have been, e.g., reckless, taken unnecessary risks, been merely careless, or over-confident. We may then have less sympathy for their suffering even though we do not, and should not, refuse assistance if they are in need. For the most part, however, the criminal law construes the victim of crime as the passive object of wrongdoing. This paper will consider how and in what ways the criminal law might recognise the agency of victims and the contribution they make to the harms they suffer as the victims of crime. Is there e.g. room in the criminal law for something comparable to the civil law idea of ‘contributory negligence’? Do citizens have some responsibility not to expose their fellow citizens to temptation?