Choice and Action (Actus Reus) Essay ⋆ Criminal Justice Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Actus reus is the physical, observable aspect of a crime, and comprises a bodily action, threat of action, or in some cases an omission or refusal to act. To be held legally responsible for some crimes requires both an actus reus, Latin for “guilty act,” and a mens rea, Latin for “guilty mind.” To be criminally responsible for murder, one must perform the actus reus—the unlawful killing of a person—with the mens rea—the intent or knowledge that one’s act could result in the death of a person.

For example, Susan hates her coworkers and wishes them ill. She spends hours fantasizing in graphic detail about doing awful things to them, challenges herself to come up with new and more elaborate tortures she could inflict upon them, and daydreams about inflicting pain and suffering on her coworkers. If she could act out these horrors on them and be assured that she would suffer no consequences, she believes that she would and, as one might expect, Susan is a rather good judge of what she would and would not do. Susan is by most accounts a morally bad person; however, Susan is not legally culpable for anything because she has not chosen to act out her fantasies. Although Susan fantasizes about causing harm to others she neither harms them, nor does she intend to harm them merely by thinking about harming them. As such, she exhibits neither an actus reus nor a mens rea.

It is possible to exhibit an actus reus without a mens rea. For example, Joseph is a volunteer at his local museum. Unbeknownst to him, the museum recently acquired an antique firearm that the curator hastily put on display without checking to see if it was loaded. While cleaning the display Joseph picks up and aims the firearm at other displays in the museum and playfully pulls the trigger. He is shocked when the weapon fires and destroys an antique vase. It makes sense to say that Joseph has destroyed the vase—that he has set off an entirely avoidable chain of events that brought about the destruction of the vase; but although Joseph intentionally pulled the trigger it doesn’t make sense to say that he intentionally fired the weapon or purposely broke the vase.

The actus reus does not always need to be successful to constitute a crime. Although there are different penalties for murder and attempted murder, Thomas Nagel asked a famous question—How is it possible for one to be less culpable if a bird gets in the way of one’s bullet? Both a successful and a failed assassination attempt constitute an actus reus but for different crimes, the first for murder, the second for attempted murder. In his work on moral luck, Michael Zimmerman has made a compelling case that it is not possible that one can be less morally culpable because of luck in the results of one’s actions. According to Zimmerman the successful assassin is as equally morally blameworthy as the unsuccessful, and unlucky, assassin. The difference in legal penalty, then, is likely not a result of some perceived difference in moral blameworthiness between different actus reuses with the same intent, but rather in the difficulty in attributing with certainty the same mens rea to the unsuccessful assassin as the successful one.

In some cases a harmful event may result from two or more causes. In such cases, one of these causes is an actus reus only if there is a direct causal link between the act and the harm, rather than a merely accidental or coincidental link.

Acts and Omissions

Philosophers have long argued about whether an action and an omission are morally equivalent when all else is equal. Notably, James Rachels argued that active euthanasia, the intentional act of killing a patient, for example by giving them a fatal dose of drugs, is morally equivalent to passive euthanasia, the intentional act letting a patient die, such as by withholding life-saving or life-sustaining treatment. What makes an action morally right or wrong, he argues, is the reason one has to do it; and he contends that there is nothing inherently more wrong with killing than with letting die. In practice, withholding treatment as passive euthanasia is likely to cause more pain and suffering than actively ending a life would, and thus there may be more reason to commit active euthanasia in cases where passive euthanasia would otherwise be considered.

Despite persuasive arguments in favor of the moral equivalence of acting and refraining, the law tends to draw a distinction between actions and omissions because in cases where an agent acts it is often clear what their intention is and whether they exhibit a mens rea. In contrast, it would be difficult to prove that someone who merely allows a bad thing to happen did so with the malice and forethought necessary to constitute a mens rea. However, there are a small number of situations when an omission constitutes an actus reus.

In cases where the actus reus of a crime is an omission, or failure to act, the agent in question must have a duty to act. There are a number of ways in which one can come to have such a duty; for example, one can willingly undertake a duty by volunteering to fulfill a role or perform some action or by entering into a contract that imparts a duty to perform certain actions. When someone creates a dangerous situation, one might also incur a duty to mitigate the harm, or offer restitution.

One can also come to have duties by accepting a position, such as political office or military command, or by entering into the medical profession. Military commanders are said to be legally culpable for the actions of those under their command. Commanders are responsible for war crimes committed by their troops if they knew, had reason to believe, or should have known that their forces were committing, or were about to commit, war crimes and omitted to stop them.

Physicians and hospitals have a special duty to provide medical treatment to their patients when doing so is in their patients’ best interest unless their patients refuse to consent. This duty is applicable even in cases where patients are unable to consent. Some philosophers have argued that the professional obligation to offer medical care by physicians is not a professional obligation at all, but rather a moral obligation created by their medical knowledge and ability to help, such that an unemployed medical professional whose license has expired may still have a moral obligation to attempt to provide treatment for patients in emergency situations.

In most cases, one has a duty to one’s family, one’s close biological relatives, and one’s dependants. For example, parents have strong duties to prevent harm to their children. Often parents who do not have custody of their biological children still have obligations to them in terms of providing financial assistance. Parents who withhold healthful food, medical care, or other goods that are in their children’s best interest are legally culpable for such omissions in care.

Bibliography:

Nagel, Thomas. “Moral Luck.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, v.50 (1976).
Rachels, James. “Active and Passive Euthanasia.” New England Journal of Medicine, v.292 (1975).
Rachels, James. “Killing and Starving to Death.” Philosophy, v.54/208 (1979).
Trammell, Richard L. “Saving Life and Taking Life.” Journal of Philosophy, v.72 (1975).
Zimmerman, Michael J. “Taking Luck Seriously.” The Journal of Philosophy, v.99/11 (2002).

This example Choice and Action (Actus Reus) Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.