Courts and scholars long have distinguished the wrongdoing component of criminal liability from the culpability component. In the old days, wrongdoing was thought to be crime’s physical, objective component— the “evil-doing hand.” Culpability, by contrast, was the mental, subjective component—the “evil-meaning mind.” Nowadays, most scholars agree with Holmes that even the wrongdoing component requires proof of the actor’s mental state. If the wrongdoing component requires proof of the actor’s mental state, though, what’s the point of the culpability requirement? For now, the dominant answer appears to be that the culpability requirement is a concession to human weakness. In this Article, I will develop a different view. I will argue that the culpability requirement is less a concession to human weakness than to the varieties of human rationality. Building on insights by philosopher Michael Bratman and others, I will argue that rationality can take at least two fundamentally different forms. The wrongdoing requirement is concerned only with conduct’s time-slice rationality—with the act’s downstream risks and utilities as measured from the moment of the act. Conduct that isn’t time- slice rational, however, still can embody a second kind of rationality, namely, temporally extended rationality. This second variety of rationality is present, for example, when an actor’s conduct is attributable to desirable habits of thinking, feeling, or behaving. The culpability requirement is best understood as addressed to this second kind of rationality. It absolves just those actors whose conduct, though wrongful, nevertheless is a product of desirable habits.

法院和学者长期以来一直将刑事责任的不当行为部分与过失部分区分开来。在过去，不法行为被认为是犯罪的客观客观组成部分——“作恶之手”。相比之下，罪责是精神上的、主观的成分——“心怀恶意”。如今，大多数学者都同意福尔摩斯的观点，即即使是不法行为也需要证明演员的精神状态。但是，如果不法行为部分需要证明行为人的精神状态，那么过失要求的意义何在？就目前而言，主要答案似乎是罪责要求是对人性弱点的让步。在本文中，我将提出不同的观点。我将争辩说，有罪要求与其说是对人性弱点的让步，不如说是对人类理性多样性的让步。基于哲学家迈克尔布拉特曼和其他人的见解，我将论证理性至少可以采取两种根本不同的形式。不法行为要求仅与行为的时间片合理性有关——与行为的下游风险和从行为时刻开始衡量的效用有关。然而，非时间片理性的行为仍然可以体现第二种理性，即时间延展的理性。例如，当演员的行为归因于理想的思维、感觉或行为习惯时，就会出现第二种理性。过失要求最好理解为针对第二种合理性。它只免除那些行为虽然是错误的，但却是良好习惯的产物的行为者。