Julius Stone Institute of Jurisprudence 
<http://www.law.usyd.edu.au/jurisprudence/>  presents

 


Psychologising Jekyll, Demonising Hyde: The Strange Case of Criminal 
Responsibility 
<http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/law/457.html?eventcategoryid=35&eventid=3050> 

Friday 5 December 2008, 5pm

Sydney Law School, 173-175 Phillip Street, Sydney

 

Professor Nicola Lacey 
<http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/law/staff/nicola-lacey.htm> , Professor of 
Criminal Law and Legal Theory, London School of Economics 

 

 

In this public lecture, Nicola Lacey puts Robert Louis Stevenson's famous story 
of Jekyll and Hyde to work for a specific interpretive purpose in criminal law 
theory. The question of responsibility for crime, complicated by not only the 
supernatural dimension of Mr. Hyde's appearance but also by Stevenson's grasp 
of contemporary psychiatric, evolutionary and medical thought, are key to the 
interest of the story.

Lacey argues that Jekyll and Hyde serves as a powerful metaphor both for 
specifically late Victorian perplexities about criminality and criminal 
responsibility, and for more persistently troubling questions about the 
legitimacy of and practical basis for criminalization. A close reading of the 
story can help to illustrate the complex mix of elements bearing on criminal 
responsibility-attribution, and to explain what is wrong with the influential 
argument that, by the end of the 19th Century, attributions of responsibility 
already rested primarily on factual findings about the defendant's state of 
mind.

Far from representing the moment of triumph of a practice of responsibility 
attribution grounded in the assessment of whether the defendant's capacities 
were fully engaged, Lacey argues that an analysis of mental derangement 
defences in the late 19th Century helps us to understand that longer-standing 
patterns of moral evaluation of character remained central to the criminal 
process. In building this argument, she suggests that Stevenson's tale can help 
us to make sense of the resurgence of overtly 'character-based' practices of 
responsibility attribution in contemporary Britain.

This lecture is free, however places are limited and RSVP is required.
RSVP: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 

For a copy of the event flyer, click here 
<http://www.law.usyd.edu.au/events/2008/December/JSI_Lacey_051208.pdf> . 

________________________________________________________________________

 

For further information, please contact the events team, tel: (02) 9351 0248, 
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

 

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Faculty of Law | University of Sydney | Level 12 | 173-175 Phillip Street, 
Sydney NSW 2000

Tel:  9351 0248 | Fax:  9351 0200 | www.law.usyd.edu.au/events | E: [EMAIL 
PROTECTED]

 

 

 

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