The idea of a cultural defense in criminal law is often ridiculed. To allow someone charged with a crime to say “this is my culture” as an excuse seems to open the door to cultural relativism, to jeopardize the protection of fundamental rights, and to undermine norms of individual responsibility. Yet many scholars insist that cultural evidence is essential for the fair operation of the criminal law. Precisely because the criminal law is society’s most powerful tool for regulating behavior, we apply safeguards to ensure that criminal sanctions are imposed fairly. With respect to individuals, th ... More

The idea of a cultural defense in criminal law is often ridiculed. To allow someone charged with a crime to say “this is my culture” as an excuse seems to open the door to cultural relativism, to jeopardize the protection of fundamental rights, and to undermine norms of individual responsibility. Yet many scholars insist that cultural evidence is essential for the fair operation of the criminal law. Precisely because the criminal law is society’s most powerful tool for regulating behavior, we apply safeguards to ensure that criminal sanctions are imposed fairly. With respect to individuals, the rules for judging responsibility and punishment ought to track the blameworthiness of the specific individual being prosecuted for a specific action. Cultural evidence may help improve our judgments of individual blameworthiness and desert; indeed, it might even be necessary if the practice of punishing individuals is to be legitimate. According to its proponents, the use of cultural evidence when judging individual blameworthiness is a natural extension of both the logic of existing criminal law doctrines, and of current philosophical theories of responsibility and agency. Each chapter in this volume addresses a different dimension of the issue, from a range of perspectives, with varying degrees of sympathy or skepticism regarding cultural defenses. The volume explores why cultural diversity raises distinctive challenges in the criminal law context, not found in other domains of the multiculturalism debate, while exploring how this particular context raises fundamental issues of agency and responsibility that are at the heart of broader debates in legal, social, and political philosophy.