Konrad Scheffler aks: >a clear distinction is made between murder and attempted murder, with the latter being treated as far more forgiveable than the former. This is true even in cases where the actions and intentions and therefore (IMO) the culpability of the perpetrator are identical. How do lawyers defend this?
Answer: With great difficulty and at length. In the very early part of his career, Prof. Alan Dershowitz taught an unusual course in substantice criminal law. He taught, I gather, an ideal system of criminal laws -- rather than criminal law as it exists anywhere. I believe (but I do not know) that in his ideal system (ideal in his mind at the time) intentions counted for a lot and results for very little. Or perhaps his ideal criminal law worked this way: risks counted for a lot and realization of risks, very little. (I didn't take Dershowitz's course and I only glanced at his materials [many years ago!]). Moral 1: Konrad Scheffler's question has occurred to many people. I will leave it to other people to decide if that question has ever been well answered. Possible Moral 2: Social practices do not always respond even to powerful logic or argument. Note A: Wouldn't some economists argue that a requirement of actual harm -- realized risk -- promotes economic "efficiency"? (But this leaves the question: Why criminalize attempts?)
