After undergraduate and postgraduate work at Oxford, and a visiting year at the University of Washington, I taught Philosophy at the University of Stirling for almost forty years. I retired from that post in 2009, and then held a half-time post in the University of Minnesota Law School for the following five years, where I co-founded the Robina Institute for Criminal Law and Criminal Justice. I formally retired in 2015—which means that I no longer have any duties to do with teaching, grading, or administration, but can carry on pursuing intellectual projects, and participating in workshops and seminars, as much (or as little) as I want to.
Initially I worked in moral philosophy and philosophy of action, but my main focus for nearly fifty years has been in philosophy of criminal law. I have worked on the philosophy of punishment (Trials and Punishments, 1986; Punishment, Communication, and Community, 2001); on the grounds and structure of criminal responsibility and liability (Intention, Agency, and Criminal Responsibility, 1990; Criminal Attempts, 1996; Answering for Crime, 2007); on the criminal process (The Trial on Trial, 2007), and on the principles of criminalisation in a democratic republic (The Realm of Criminal Law, 2018). The last two of these books emerged from two collaborative projects: The Trial on Trial (with Lindsay Farmer, Sandra Marshall, and Victor Tadros), 2002-05, and Criminalization (with Lindsay Farmer, Sandra Marshall, Massimo Renzo, and Victor Tadros), 2008-12. Each of these projects produced volumes of papers from workshops, as well as monographs (co-)written by members of the project team. I was also, until 2024, a member of the editorial team for Anglo-German Dialogues, which aims to promote cross-jurisdictional discussions between common law and civil systems, and has so far published three volumes of co-authored comparative papers.
Other collaborative activities have a more applied character. I chaired a British Academy working group on the use of imprisonment, which published a report, A Presumption against Imprisonment, in 2014. I am currently secretary of Howard League Scotland, which campaigns for humane and rational penal policies. I am also working with Philosophy in Prison, on Prison Voices, a project on the importance of, and the obstacles to, supporting prisoners in finding their voice and making it heard: following a series of workshops, this will produce an edited volume of papers and a British Academy report.
Work in Progress or Forthcoming
· ‘“How Could You Be So Blind?”: When Ignorance is no Excuse’, for Heinze et al (eds), Blame for Ignorance (Hart)
· ‘Responsibility and Liability in Criminal Law’, for Levy and Donalson (eds), Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Criminal Responsibility (Palgrave)
· ‘Complainants’ Responsibilities in the Criminal Process’ (with S E Marshall), for Holder et al (eds), Research Handbook on Victims, Rights, and Justice (Elgar)
· ‘Are Regulatory Offences Really Crimes?’, for van den Hoven et al (eds) Liber Amicorum for Mireille Hildebrandt (Edinburgh University Press)
· ‘“We find You Guilty’: The Standard of Proof and the Second Person Voice’ (with S E Marshall), for Jackson and Summers (eds), The Distinctiveness of the Criminal Law Standard of Proof
· ‘The Implications of the Philosophy of Punishment for Criminal Justice Practice’ (with M Matravers), for Annual Review of Criminology
· ‘Justifying Pre-Trial Detention’, for Hucklesby et al (eds) Research Handbook on Pre-Trial Detention and Bail (Edward Elgar)
· ‘Different kinds of “Dangerousness”, and why the Differences Matter’, for Bergen-Helsinki Criminal Law and Dangerousness Roundtables