Books in the Moral Limits of the Criminal Law series

This first volume in the four-volume series The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law focuses on the "harm principle," the commonsense view that prevention of harm to persons other than the perpetrator is a legitimate purpose of criminal legislation. Feinberg presents a detailed analysis of the concept and definition of harm and applies it to a host of practical and theoretical issues, showing how the harm principle must be interpreted if it is to be a plausible guide to the lawmaker.

The second volume of Joel Feinberg's work, "The Moral Limits of Criminal Law", a four-volume work that addresses the question: what kinds of conduct may the state make criminal without infringing on the moral autonomy of individual citizen?

The 4th and final volume in the series defines the philosophical basis for criminalizing so-called "victimless crimes", such as pornography and consensual sexual activity.

This is the third volume of Joel Feinberg's highly regarded "The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law," a four-volume series in which he skillfully addresses a complex question: What kinds of conduct may the state make criminal without infringing on the moral autonomy of individual citizens? In "Harm to Self," Feinberg discusses various problems about self-inflicted harm, covering such topics as legal paternalism, personal sovereignty and its boundaries, voluntariness and assumptions of risk, consent and its counterfeits, coercive force, incapacity, and choice of death.