On the Origin of Legal Interests in a Liberal Criminal Law System. Preliminary Remarks

Keywords: legal interests, criminalization, philosophy of criminal law

English abstract: The article tries to answer the legal-philosophical problem underlying the continental theories of criminalization, i.e., what the reasons are for the legislator establishing a specific catalogue of interests protected by law. To answer this question, the authors first outline what characterizes continental criminalization theories (as opposed to common law ones), and then present two basic types of theories justifying the legislator’s choice of legal interests: systemicinherent and system-transcendent theories. Within the systemic-transcendent type, the authors distinguish three potential theories: a systemic-transcendent social theory, a systemictranscendent moralistic theory, and a systemic-transcendent disintegrative theory. Against each of them, however, the authors find serious disqualifying arguments, which eventually makes them argue that the answers to the research question posed above should be sought among system-inherent theories.

Language: Polish

Published: Number 4(37)/2023, pp. 27-39.

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