Reinhard Merkel, Dr. iur.

Project

Juridico-Ethical Foundations of Modern Criminal Law: Prerequisites for the Prohibition of Human Behavior - Principles of Justification - Requirements und Limits of Personal Culpability

Ziel des Projekts ist es, die Grundlagen einer systematischen Philosophie des sog. Allgemeinen Teils des Strafrechts (kontinentaleuropäischer Provenienz) zu erarbeiten. Vorausgesetzt ist dabei, dass es zahlreiche Probleme begrifflicher, legitimationstheoretischer und sogar metaphysischer Art gibt, die sowohl im Strafrecht als auch in der Philosophie Gegenstand intensiver und streitiger Erörterung sind.
Einige Beispiele:
- Grundlagen menschlichen Handelns, einschließlich einer Typologie von Formen der Täterschaft und der Teilnahme sowie der Unterscheidung von Tun und Unterlassen
- Begriff und mögliche Konzeptionen der Kausalität
- Bedingungen der normativen Zurechnung von Handlungsfolgen
- Grenzen zwangsrechtlicher Befugnisse des Staates und deren Gründe
- normative Grundlagen einer ausnahmsweisen Legitimation grundsätzlich verbotenen Verhaltens
- Bedingungen und Grenzen der Zuschreibung persönlicher Schuld, einschließlich des Problems der Willensfreiheit und der sog. mentalen Verursachung von Ereignissen der physischen Welt (etwa körperlicher Bewegungen als "Rohstoff" menschlicher Handlungen)
Es gibt derzeit keine produktiven Diskussionen zwischen den wissenschaftlichen Sphären des Strafrechts und der Philosophie über diese doch grundsätzlichen gemeinsamen Probleme. Einen solchen ersten Brückenschlag zu unternehmen, ist das Ziel meines Vorhabens. Ich bin sicher, dass sich aus den Diskussionen jeder dieser beiden Sphären zahlreiche fruchtbare Einsichten für die jeweils andere gewinnen lassen.

Lektüreempfehlung

Merkel, Reinhard. Willensfreiheit und rechtliche Schuld: Eine strafrechtsphilosophische Untersuchung. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2008.
Merkel, Reinhard. Forschungsobjekt Embryo: verfassungsrechtliche und ethische Grundlagen der Forschung an menschlichen embryonalen Stammzellen. München: DTV, 2002.
Merkel, Reinhard. "§ 14 Abs. 3 Luftsicherheitsgesetz: Wann und warum darf der Staat töten? Über taugliche und untaugliche Prinzipien zur Lösung einer Grundfrage des Rechts." Juristenzeitung 8, 62 (2007): 373-385.

Colloquium, 03.02.2009

The Identity of Persons over Time: A Cryptic (and Neglected) Premise of, and Limit to, Any Well-ordered System of Criminal Law

Am I the same today as I was yesterday? Dumb question. (If not me, who or what then?) Am I the same as ten years ago? Twenty years? Thirty? The same as the embryo from which I developed? Would I be the same person if a terrible accident were to befall me and I lapsed into a coma? What precisely are the criteria we use to ascertain-or negate-a person's identical-with-himselfness across the years?

This is a classic philosophical question. And ever since the question's first systematic treatment in John Locke's Essay "Concerning Human Understanding" (1690), numerous answers have been forwarded. There is no consensus regarding the proper one. Should there be a bodily criterion? A psychological one? A combination of the two? Something entirely different?

Such questions also play an important role in criminal law. But as far as I can tell, this role has gone largely unrecognized by legal theorists. Neither in criminal court verdicts nor among legal scholars (at least in Germany) has there been any systematic treatment of the problem of personal identity. This is astonishing. Why so? Because one of the tacit assumptions of criminal imputation-i.e. the imputation of deeds and their consequences to specific persons-is that the actor within the historical sequel of the relevant episode should remain identical with himself. But in certain contexts this assumption is false or implausible. This circumstance has significant ramifications for criminal law, which have not been properly perceived and therefore not properly addressed by current legal doctrine.

My lecture is an attempt to survey the presently still rather confusing challenges thrown up by these problems. I will do this by first introducing a series of conceptual and methodological distinctions intended to make the metaphysical problem of identity more transparent. I am not concerned here with actually solving the problem-although I will be briefly outlining four of its most important solutions. (I don't believe that there is one all-encompassing correct solution.) My concern is rather the specific link between the question of personal identity and ethical and legal problems.

In order to clarify this link, I will be drawing further distinctions within the fundamental categories of criminal law. Thereafter I will discuss four typical penological problems using quintessential (but largely invented) case-studies. For each of them the key to their solution lies in answering a specific question as to personal identity-solutions not to be found in the usual answers sought by the judicature and legal scholars in the current debate. I should like to show that for the respective solutions we don't require a single correct conception but rather various conceptions of personal identity; and then to demonstrate why this is so. The primary purpose of my analysis is to initiate a discussion in the sphere of criminal law that is long overdue. And it can only be successful, I believe, if it involves philosophers or even philosophy writ large.