The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law
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"Coarseness itself when applied to character and conduct is a paradigm of a charientic term referring to one who is "crude or unrefined in taste, manners, or sensibilities; without cultivation of taste, politeness or civility of manner, or delicacy of feeling," often "crude and indelicate of language or idea, especially with violation of social taboos on language." "Vulgar" is much the same in meaning, but is an even stronger term, one which "may suggest boorishness." "Gross" is clearly a close relation, but one which "stresses crude animal inclinations and lack of refinement." "Obscene," of course, "is the strongest of this group in stressing impropriety, indecency, or nastiness. . . . " Finally "ribald" suggests "rough merriment or crude humor at the irreverent, scurrilous, or vulgar." Ribald behavior, I should think, is merely "naughty," though perhaps extremely so, but the other terms in this negative charientic family apply to the repulsively offensive, and of those, "obscene" is by far the strongest, unless we include in this group, as Webster's did not, the word "indecent."" --Offense to Others, p. 109, Joel Feinberg, the inline definitions are from Webster's Third New International Dictionary |
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The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law (1984-1988) is a four-volume book by Joel Feinberg consisting of Harm to Others (1984), Offense to Others (1985), Harm to Self (1986), and Harmless Wrongdoing (1988).
Feinberg's goal in the book is to answer the question: What sorts of conduct may the state rightly make criminal? John Stuart Mill, in his classic On Liberty (1859), had given a staunchly "liberal" answer to this question. According to Mill, the only kind of conduct that the state may rightly criminalize is conduct that causes harm to others. Though Feinberg, who had read and re-read Mill's classic text many times, shares Mill's liberal leanings, he thinks that liberals can and should admit that certain kinds of non-harmful but profoundly offensive conduct can also properly be prohibited by law. In The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Feinberg seeks to develop and defend a broadly Millian view of the limits of state power over the individual. In the process, he defends what many would view as characteristically "liberal" positions on topics such as suicide, obscenity, pornography, hate speech, and euthanasia. He also analyzes with great subtlety and skill concepts such as "harm," "offense," "wrong," "autonomy," "responsibility," "paternalism," "coercion," and "exploitation." In a surprising twist, Feinberg concedes in the conclusion to the final volume that liberalism may not be fully defensible. Liberals, he claims, may have to concede that in rare cases it may be legitimate for the government to criminalize certain kinds of moral harms and harmless immoralities.
The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. Vol. 1, Harm to Others. New York: Oxford University Press, 1984.
The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. Vol. 2, Offense to Others. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.
A ride on the bus
In Offense to Others, the second volume of The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law, Feinberg offers one of the most famous thought-experiments in recent philosophy: a series of imaginary scenarios he calls "a ride on the bus." Feinberg invites us to imagine a bus ride in which you, a passenger rushing to an important appointment, are confronted by a series of deeply offensive but harmless acts. Some of the acts involve affronts to the senses (e.g., a man scratching his fingernails across a slate). Others involve acts that are deeply disgusting or revolting (e.g., eating various kinds of nauseatingly repulsive things). Still others involve affronts to our religious, moral, or patriotic sensibilities (e.g., overt acts of flag desecration); shocks to our sense of shame or embarrassment (such as acts of public sex); and a wide range of offensive conduct based on fear, anger, humiliation, boredom or frustration. The thought experiment is designed to test the limits of our tolerance for harmless but deeply offensive forms of behavior. More precisely, it raises the question "whether there are any human experiences that are harmless in themselves yet so unpleasant that we can rightly demand legal protection from them even at the cost of other persons' liberties." Feinberg argues that even left-leaning, highly tolerant liberals must recognize that some forms of harmless but profoundly offensive conduct can properly be criminalized.
The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. Vol. 3, Harm to Self. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law. Vol. 4, Harmless Wrongdoing. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
