The contemporary debate regarding justification defenses in the criminal law tends to emphasize the logical relationships among offense elements, justification defenses, and excuses in the context of the traditional justifications for criminal punishment. These are important concerns, and this book joins that debate. This book seeks a broader foundation, however, in the principles of political morality represented by the criminal law. The theory advanced here demonstrates the importance of the expressive function of criminal conviction and punishment in a system of criminal law that serves as an official representation of liberal principles of political morality. It also contends that appreciation of the abstract foundations and functions of the criminal law can inform the search for the most defensible resolution of difficult contemporary applications, such as those involving claims of justification by defendants who kill their batterers or engage in crimes of conscience.

As with any extended intellectual project, this book builds upon the contributions of many individuals. I am particularly grateful to Barbara Sturgis and Megan Sullivan, who served as my coauthors in writing one of the articles in which we initially presented some of the arguments developed in this book. Many of my colleagues at the University of Nebraska participated in an extended (some of them might say interminable) series of discussions and faculty colloquia regarding many of the issues and arguments presented here. Robert Audi, Marty Gardner, Steve Kalish, Jo Potuto, and John Snowden read and commented upon various manuscripts that contributed to the analysis in this book.