Culpability
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In
criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
, culpability, or being culpable, is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held
morally Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of cond ...
or legally responsible for action and inaction. It has been noted that the word, culpability, "ordinarily has
normative Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
force, for in nonlegal English, a person is culpable only if he is justly to blame for his conduct". Culpability therefore marks the dividing line between
moral evil Moral evil is any morally negative event caused by the intentional action or inaction of an agent, such as a person. An example of a moral evil might be murder, war or any other evil event for which someone can be held responsible or culpable."The ...
, like
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
, for which someone may be held legally responsible, and a randomly occurring event, like naturally occurring
earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...
s or naturally arriving
meteorites A meteorite is a solid piece of debris from an object, such as a comet, asteroid, or meteoroid, that originates in outer space and survives its passage through the atmosphere to reach the surface of a planet or moon. When the original object en ...
, for which no human can be held responsible.


Etymology

Culpability descends from the
Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
concept of fault ('' culpa'').


Concept

The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions of agency, freedom, and
free will Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
. All are commonly held to be necessary, but not
sufficient In logic and mathematics, necessity and sufficiency are terms used to describe a conditional or implicational relationship between two statements. For example, in the conditional statement: "If then ", is necessary for , because the truth of ...
, conditions for culpability.


In law

From a legal perspective, culpability describes the degree of one's ''blameworthiness'' in the commission of a
crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...
or offense. Except for
strict liability In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant. ...
crimes, the type and severity of punishment often follow the degree of culpability. "Culpability means, first and foremost, direct involvement in the wrongdoing, such as through participation or instruction", as compared with responsibility merely arising from "failure to supervise or to maintain adequate controls or ethical culture".Marco Arnone, Leonardo S. Borlini, ''Corruption: Economic Analysis and International Law'' (2014), p. 297. Modern criminal codes in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
usually make distinct four degrees of culpability. Legal definitions of culpability,
verbatim Verbatim means word for word. Verbatim may also refer to: * Verbatim (brand), a brand of storage media and flash memory * Verbatim (horse), an American racehorse * ''Verbatim'' (magazine), edited by Erin McKean * Verbatim theatre Documentary th ...
from th
Pennsylvania Crimes Code
are: #A person acts purposely (criminally) with respect to a material element of an offense when: ##if the element involves the nature of his conduct or a result thereof, it is his conscious object to engage in conduct of that nature or to cause such a result; and ##if the element involves the attendant circumstances, he is aware of the existence of such circumstances or he believes or hopes that they exist. #A person acts
knowingly In law, knowledge is one of the degrees of '' mens rea'' that constitute part of a crime. For example, in English law, the offense of knowingly being a passenger in a vehicle taken without consent (TWOC) requires that the prosecution prove not onl ...
with respect to a material element of an offense when: ##if the element involves the nature of his conduct or the attendant circumstances, he is aware that his conduct is of that nature or that such circumstances exist; and ##if the element involves a result of his conduct, he is aware that it is practically certain that his conduct will cause such a result. #A person acts recklessly with respect to a material element of an offense when he consciously disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that, considering the nature and intent of the actor's conduct and the circumstances known to him, its disregard involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a
reasonable person In law, a reasonable person, reasonable man, or the man on the Clapham omnibus, is a hypothetical person of legal fiction crafted by the courts and communicated through case law and jury instructions. Strictly according to the fiction, it is ...
would observe in the actor's situation. #A person acts
negligently Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as a ...
with respect to a material element of an offense when he should be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the material element exists or will result from his conduct. The risk must be of such a nature and degree that the actor's failure to perceive it, considering the nature and intent of his conduct and the circumstances known to him, involves a gross deviation from the standard of care that a reasonable person would observe in the actor's situation. In short: * A person causes a result purposely if the result is his/her goal in doing the action that causes it, * A person causes a result knowingly if he/she knows that the result is virtually certain to occur from the action he/she undertakes, * A person causes a result recklessly if he/she is aware of and disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk of the result occurring from the action, and * A person causes a result negligently if there is a substantial and unjustifiable risk he/she is unaware of but should be aware of. The first two types of culpability are each a subset of the following. Thus if someone acts purposely, they also act knowingly. If someone acts knowingly, they also act recklessly. The definitions of specific crimes refer to these degrees to establish the
mens rea In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action (or lack of action) would cause a crime to be committed. It is considered a necessary element ...
(mental state) necessary for a person to be guilty of a crime. The stricter the culpability requirements, the harder it is for the prosecution to prove its case. For instance, the definition of first degree
murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
(again in Pennsylvania) is "A criminal homicide constitutes murder of the first degree when it is committed by an intentional killing." Thus to be guilty of murder in the first degree, one must have an explicit goal in one's mind to cause the death of another. On the other hand,
reckless endangerment Endangerment is a type of crime involving conduct that is wrongful and reckless or wanton, and likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm to another person. There are several kinds of endangerment, each of which is a criminal act that can ...
has a much broader requirement: "A person commits a misdemeanor of the second degree if he recklessly engages in conduct which places or may place another person in danger of death or serious bodily injury." Thus to be guilty of this one only needs to be aware of a substantial risk he is putting others in danger of; it does not have to be one's explicit goal to put people in risk. (But, if one's goal ''is'' to put others in substantial risk of death or serious bodily injury, this is, of course, sufficient.) There is one more type of culpability, and that is ''strict liability''. In
strict liability In criminal and civil law, strict liability is a standard of liability under which a person is legally responsible for the consequences flowing from an activity even in the absence of fault or criminal intent on the part of the defendant. ...
crimes, the actor is responsible no matter what his mental state; if the result occurs, the actor is liable. An example is the felony murder rule: if the prosecution proves beyond reasonable doubt that one commits a qualifying felony (see the article) during which death results, one is held strictly liable for murder and the prosecution does not have to prove any of the normal culpability requirements for murder.


See also

*
Blame Blame is the act of censuring, holding responsible, or making negative statements about an individual or group that their actions or inaction are socially or morally irresponsible, the opposite of praise. When someone is morally responsible for ...
*
Guilt (disambiguation) Guilt may refer to: *Guilt (emotion), an emotion that occurs when a person feels that they have violated a moral standard *Culpability, a legal term *Guilt (law), a legal term Music * ''Guilt'' (album), a 2009 album by Mims * "Guilt" (The Long Bl ...
*
Scapegoating Scapegoating is the practice of singling out a person or group for unmerited blame and consequent negative treatment. Scapegoating may be conducted by individuals against individuals (e.g. "he did it, not me!"), individuals against groups (e.g., ...
*
Mens rea In criminal law, (; Law Latin for "guilty mind") is the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action (or lack of action) would cause a crime to be committed. It is considered a necessary element ...


References

{{Authority control Social ethics Criminal law legal terminology