On The Causality In Criminal Law

The issue of Causation in Criminal Law is an old problem in criminal theory; studies cannot say less, however, has not been resolved. This paper attempts to study the Causation inCriminal Law from a new perspective——the perspective of Scientific Philosophy.The issue of Causation in Criminal Law is a philosophical problem. Therefore, to discussit, in the first, must figure out what is the Causality philosophically. This constitutes the firstpart of this paper. Western academic circles began to research the causality firstly, so to beginwith, the author reviews the important and representative scholars’causal thinking in Westernacademic circles, giving an general introduction of its history. In accordance with the standardof methods and time, the Western philosophy about causal theory can be divided intoTraditional Philosophy school and Scientific Philosophy school. The former is represented byHume’s and Mill’s Empirical Philosophy, Kant’s Speculative Philosophy, Hollbach’sMaterialistic Philosophy, while the latter,Logical Empiricism of Vienna School. Byintroducing the causal thinking in Traditional Philosophy and philosophical views of ViennaSchool, we can understand how to define Causation clearly, in the context of ScientificPhilosophy.In Traditional Philosophy, Hume presented rich and very thoughtful causal thinking, andalso he was the first one to research Causation systematically. Based on Hume, Mill proposed"Mill Five Methods" and the thinking that cause is the complex of conditions. In SpeculativePhilosophy, Kant believed that Causation had congenital prescription. Materialisticphilosopher Hollbach directly asserted the inevitability of Causation, and denied thecontingency, further, he said contingency was just because of the ignorance of people. Thesescholars’researches certainly and greatly extend our knowledge about Causation, but stillthere are many ambiguities. In the early of20thcentury, Vienna School unequivocally opposedto the metaphysical components in Traditional Philosophy, advocated that the philosophyshould be scientized. The Vienna School’s basic philosophical assertions are the theoreticalbasis of this paper.After clarifying issues of Causation philosophically, there comes the second part of thepaper——the Causation in Criminal Law. Briefly, the author reviews the research profile ofthe traditional Criminal Law theory of Causation, following by the introduction of foreign Causation theory in Criminal Law, mainly are Theory of Conditions, Theory of AdequateCausation, Theory of Objective Imputation. Then, the author proposes the concept ofCausality in Criminal Law, combining with thoughts of Logical Empiricism. And he alsothinks that the characteristics of Causality which scholars often say are just the mechanicalapplication of causal traits in philosophy Causation in Criminal Law does not has the severaltraits, the only difference is, in Criminal Law, human’s behavior must be consideredemphatically.Then, the author uses the methods and philosophical assertions of Logical Empiricism, toanalyze the defects of both our traditional Causation theory and foreign important Causationtheory. He thinks that the controversies, in our traditional Criminal Law theory, betweeninevitability and contingency are meaningless, that many scholars did not know what scienceis and what scientific methods are in Scientific Philosophy. Further, He points out that in theimportant foreign Criminal Law theory, Causation also has many methodological mistakesand ambiguities.In the third part, the author studies the determination of Causality in Criminal Law fromscientific philosophy perspective. It contains two parts: normal determination and specialdetermination. The former, he says, should combine with daily experience regularity andscientific law; the latter is divided in nonfeasance crime and interrupted Causality. He says,strictly and scientifically, there is not Causation in nonfeasance crime. Causation belongs tofacts forever; we should not mingle the concept of causation for nonfeasance crime violatinglaw or morality.And he criticizes the theory of causality interruption unequivocally. He says Causality isa summary knowledge, which we observed the regularity and repeatability among pastincidents. It is "be" or "be not", there does not exist interrupted causation. We can not saycausation being interrupted just because the result did not agree with our expectations.The fourth part is the epilogue. Summarizing the whole paper, the author proposes that,to study Causality in Criminal Law, we should consider from the perspective of scientificphilosophy.