Rationality and Morality

376 Words2 Pages
Rationality and morality play an important role when criminally judging a man who attempts to throw his baby into a fire. Within criminal law, (a set of rules that embodies community values of what is wrong and harmful and ideally seeks to protect society and individuals) there are two fundamental presuppositions: morality (a system of ideas of right and wrong conducted in relation to conformity or nonconformity to the moral standards or rules set by society) and rationality (the state of being agreeable to reason). Morality does not exist in criminal law without rationality. Criminal law presupposes the possibility of making moral decisions. Yet for morality to be possible a person must be able to act rationally. Thus criminal law presupposes that a person has rationality in order for morality to exist “… for persons to be able to act so as to avoid breaking the criminal law they must be able to understand the concept of crime, know the law, evaluate their circumstances, judge their ends and weigh their means “ (Hester & Eglin, 1992, p. 81). In order to judge a man criminally two criteria must be met: actus reus (act thing) and mens rea (mind thing). Meaning, both an illegal action and the illegal intent are required to be guilty of a crime in the eyes of the law. In a case of a man who attempts to throw a baby into a fire rationality and morality become intertwined. Someone who is capable of trying to burn his baby in a fire and attempts to do so is seen as so morally corrupt that it causes doubt into this man’s rationality. Therefore, he is judged based on a moral standard as insane and found deserving of treatment. On the other hand, the character of the action (the actual attempts of throwing the baby into the fire not the man himself) is found as inhuman making him guilty and in turn rational. He would then be criminally responsible for his actions
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