Fair Opportunity and Responsibility sets forth an overarching normative vision of excuses, weds criminal law and moral theorizing, and provides both breadth and depth in its analysis. The early chapters articulate the underlying theoretical account, and the later chapters analyze specific potential excuses, such as insanity and structural injustice.Brink operates within a retributivist framework, arguing that culpable wrongdoing is the basis of blame and punishment. Because we suspend blame when someone is excused, Brink believes we can understand responsibility by understanding excuses. Brink’s overall responsibility condition is the “fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing,” which includes cognitive and volitional competence (“normative competence”) as well as situational control. Capacity is determined counterfactually and is scalar.Brink’s view is a realist conception of responsibility, where our “conception of responsibility … can be specified independently of our reactive attitudes [such that] it can serve to ground or justify those attitudes” (42). Brink takes his account to be consistent with reasons-responsive compatibilist views but does not argue for compatibilism explicitly. He notes that although our “assumptions and practices could be systematically mistaken, we should accept this conclusion reluctantly, only if we can identify no viable conception of responsibility” (6). And, to Brink, “the fair opportunity conception supplies this need” (6). He notes, “Responding to skepticism about responsibility seemed no more interesting to me than responding to skepticism about knowledge or the existence of the external world” (19). Instead, Brink mines the existing criminal law to learn when it is that we deny agents are blameworthy, such that we can learn what is required for responsibility.Valuable and interesting discussions and insights pervade this monograph. It contains almost a dizzying number of topics, including structural injustice, situationism, incompetence (including psychopathy), immaturity, addiction, and provocation. Along the way, Brink addresses countless issues that plague moral philosophers and criminal law theorists. To name just a handful, he takes a deep dive into how to understand Peter Strawson’s (1962) compatibilism; offers a take on reasons-responsiveness at the agent level rather than at the “mechanism level” that John Fischer and Mark Ravizza (1998) explicate; challenges Derk Pereboom’s (2014) defense of incompatibilism; presents an argument for what blame consists in; and defends retributivism against views that conflate it with general punitiveness.Brink’s book is a triumph. It is valuable because it is the most complete and comprehensive articulation of responsibility and excuses, and because every chapter contains insights as to particular excuses themselves. Nevertheless, let me raise three reservations about the monograph, two having to do with its structure and rigidity in organization and conceptualization and a third calling into question the umbrella of “fair opportunity” for excusing conditions writ large.First, the organization. In its deep and rich analysis of the leaves on the trees, the book loses sight of the forest. To be fair, Brink’s task is daunting; he has much to say about just about every existing and plausibly possible criminal law excuse, and to give structure to the analysis he needs to get into the trenches of criminal law doctrine. If one wants to learn why we ought to excuse juveniles, then, one has a thorough, stand-alone chapter to read, a chapter that examines intricacies beyond excuse including the actual practice of juvenile justice and the constitutional jurisprudence surrounding it. Indeed, the chapter on juveniles is outstanding, and, in fact, anyone wanting to understand any excusing doctrine would be well advised to read Brink. Still, because of this siloed approach to each excusing doctrine, it is difficult for the reader to keep track of the overall conceptual architecture that Brink is using and how the pieces relate. Rather than taking every excuse on its own terms and showing how it relates to normative incompetence or situational control, it would have been helpful for Brink to impose more top-down structure to articulate how his view generally applies. The reader is left to wonder how the claims about one excuse relate to another. And, at some points, comparisons—such as how to think about duress—are repeatedly revisited instead of fully explicated in one crisp discussion.Second, the criminal law’s conceptualization. At times, Brink does not seem to fully grasp the terrain he is mapping. His articulation of criminal law’s structure could be improved in three respects. First, Brink draws too strong a distinction between the role of offenses and defenses. He claims, for instance, “The different burdens of proof associated with the two kinds of culpability (and their denials) is a signal that they play very different roles within the criminal law” (165). But this claim is contentious as a matter of both theory and practice. The Model Penal Code (MPC), on which Brink relies frequently, requires the state to disprove defenses beyond a reasonable doubt; moreover, requiring a defendant to prove he is not responsible is certainly normatively debatable, even if constitutionally permissible. Why would it be defensible to place the burden on the state to prove a mental state going to the wrong done, but then require the defendant to persuade a jury that she was not responsible at the time? Second, and relatedly, Brink fails to attend to the permeability of the offense/defense divide. Brink often repairs to the argument that defendants, even if they lack a capacity at a particular moment, may be blameworthy for this lack of capacity and thus not entitled to an excuse. But criminal law does not work in such stark terms. Instead of simply denying a defendant an excuse full stop because of his earlier blameworthiness, the criminal law, and the MPC in particular, look to the defendant’s culpability vis-à-vis the particular harm when the impairment occurs. That is, an intoxicated actor is not responsible for every crime simply because she is responsible for her intoxication. For instance, she may still lack the mental state for the required criminal act. Criminal law does not treat responsibility as simply an on/off switch, where one loses excuses because of early choices. Instead, the content of those earlier choices bear on what crime can be charged. Finally, Brink notes the difficulty of reconciling the scalarity of excuses with criminal law doctrine, but he fails to fully appreciate the potential for sentencing discretion. Brink largely dismisses sentencing as the forum for taking into account fine-grained mitigating determinations because of mandatory minimums and sentencing enhancements. Yet one might query whether mandatory minima are as pervasive as Brink asserts; moreover, this feature of existing law is not one to which retributivists subscribe. Hence, theoretically, at least, a properly functioning sentencing regime could take mitigating factors on board. Criminal law has more shades of gray, and more complexity to its analysis, than Brink sometimes gives it credit for, and the failure to appreciate this sometimes misunderstands the stakes in criminal law, thereby preventing more nuanced and fluid analysis across offenses, defenses, and sentencing generally.Third, are all excuses really about “fair opportunity”? At one point, Brink makes a passing observation that is worth dwelling on. He notes that “there is a sense in which fair opportunity also animates defenses that are justifications” (209). As he explains: “When I commit an offense as a lesser evil, I lack a fair opportunity to avoid the offense, and when I use self-defense to repel a culpable aggressor, he leaves me no fair opportunity to avoid harming him. In these ways fair opportunity provides a rationale for defenses generally, and not just excuses” (209). This is a rather striking observation, as I would think that a view of excuses that swallows justifications is at least prima facie problematic. For one thing, it calls into question whether actors who engage in justified (and arguably right) actions are praiseworthy, given that we might deny someone is praiseworthy for doing something she is not responsible for. For another, it requires us to ask whether the way that “fair opportunity” operates is the same for duress, necessity, and self-defense. Lesser evils might be distinguished because bystanders need not get involved at all; this is not the case for duress and self-defense. Alternatively, some theorists think of duress as more akin to justifications than to excuses (Moore 2020: 320). This argument sees the limitation of options as making the action closer to permissible, whereby then a supplemental normative impairment will have to do the work to get the defendant over the excusing threshold; but given that the action is close to justified, it will not take much. That is, the limitation of options is not excusing at all.More generally, this observation casts doubt on a one-heading penumbral account of “fair opportunity.” It is true, as Brink notes, that the criminal law cares about prospective fairness, as evidenced by its principle of legality, but fairness does not do the explanatory work for most of Brink’s account. The ways in which normatively incompetent agents are not be responsible for their wrongdoing fundamentally undermine their agency for that criminal act. It is true that it is unfair to blame them, but it is more importantly inapt. If I can’t blame my book for falling and landing on my toe, the idea that it is unfair to blame it misses the mark. Instead, books just are not apt targets of blame. When we withhold blame from the person who suffers delusions that she is being ordered to kill her children by the devil or the person who experiences strong internal compulsions from her kleptomania, we do not start with the idea that it is unfair. Instead, we withhold blame because the agent is not responsible, and it is unfair to blame those who are not responsible. In contrast, when we think that someone faced with limited options should not be blamed, the unfairness of her situation does explanatory heavy lifting—given her options, it would be unfair to ask her to do otherwise. That these two kinds of judgments are significantly different in kind is revealed by Brink’s observation that lack of fair opportunity can be at play for justifications. When an agent does rise to the occasion, when she does the right thing even given her limited options, this does not fundamentally undermine her responsibility. We do praise the agent who acts rightly, even when the situation was unfairly thrust on her.Though I might have assembled the book differently and questioned what the criminal law reveals about the underlying morality at times, I cannot help but marvel at Brink’s accomplishment. I cannot think of another writer who has so systematically worked through so many moral and legal intricacies. It has a rightful place on the shelf of all theorists interested in responsibility and the criminal law.

中文翻译：

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公平的机会和责任

《公平机会与责任》提出了关于借口的总体规范愿景，将刑法和道德理论结合起来，并提供了分析的广度和深度。前面的章节阐述了基本的理论解释，后面的章节分析了具体的潜在借口，例如精神错乱和结构性不公正。布林克在报应主义框架内运作，认为有罪的不当行为是责备和惩罚的基础。因为当某人被原谅时我们会暂停责备，布林克相信我们可以通过理解借口来理解责任。布林克的总体责任条件是“避免不当行为的公平机会”，其中包括认知和意志能力（“规范能力”）以及情境控制。能力是反事实地确定的并且是标量的。布林克的观点是一种现实主义的责任概念，其中我们的“责任概念......可以独立于我们的反应态度来指定，[从而]它可以为这些态度提供基础或证明其合理性”（42）。布林克认为他的解释与原因响应相容论观点一致，但没有明确主张相容论。他指出，尽管我们的“假设和实践可能会出现系统性错误，但只有当我们无法确定任何可行的责任概念时，我们才应该勉强接受这个结论”（6）。而且，对于布林克来说，“公平机会的概念满足了这种需求”（6）。他指出，“对我来说，回应对责任的怀疑并不比回应对知识或外部世界存在的怀疑更有趣”（19）。相反，布林克挖掘现有的刑法来了解我们何时否认代理人应受谴责，这样我们就可以了解责任所需的条件。这本专着充满了有价值且有趣的讨论和见解。它包含几乎令人眼花缭乱的主题，包括结构性不公正、情境主义、无能（包括精神病）、不成熟、成瘾和挑衅。一路走来，布林克解决了无数困扰道德哲学家和刑法理论家的问题。仅举几例，他深入探讨了如何理解彼得·斯特劳森（Peter Strawson，1962）的相容论；提供了代理层面的原因响应性，而不是 John Fischer 和 Mark Ravizza (1998) 所阐述的“机制层面”；挑战 Derk Pereboom (2014) 对不相容论的辩护；提出责备的论点；并捍卫报应主义，反对将报应主义与一般惩罚性混为一谈的观点。布林克的书是一次胜利。它很有价值，因为它是对责任和借口最完整、最全面的阐述，并且因为每一章都包含对特定借口本身的见解。尽管如此，让我对这本专着提出三点保留意见，两个与组织和概念化的结构和僵化有关，第三个对宽泛条件的“公平机会”保护伞提出质疑。首先，组织。在对树上的叶子进行深入而丰富的分析时，这本书忽略了森林。公平地说，布林克的任务是艰巨的。他对几乎每一个现有的和看似可能的刑法借口都有很多话要说，并为他深入刑法学说所需的分析提供了结构。如果你想了解为什么我们应该为青少年辩护，那么，你可以阅读一章详尽的、独立的章节，这一章探讨了超越借口的复杂性，包括青少年司法的实际实践以及围绕它的宪法判例。事实上，关于青少年的章节非常出色，事实上，任何想要理解任何借口学说的人都应该阅读布林克。尽管如此，由于每个借口学说都采用这种孤立的方法，读者很难跟踪布林克正在使用的整体概念架构以及各个部分之间的关​​系。对于布林克来说，强加更多自上而下的结构来阐明他的观点通常如何适用，而不是根据自己的条件来解释每一个借口，并表明它与规范无能或情境控制有何关系。读者不得不想知道关于一种借口的主张与另一种借口有何关联。而且，在某些时候，比较——例如如何思考胁迫——被反复重新审视，而不是在一次清晰的讨论中得到充分解释。第二，刑法的概念化。有时，布林克似乎并没有完全掌握他正在绘制的地形。他对刑法结构的阐述可以在三个方面得到改进。首先，布林克对进攻和防守的作用区分得太过分了。例如，他声称，“与两种罪责（及其否认）相关的不同举证责任表明它们在刑法中扮演着截然不同的角色”（165）。但这种说法在理论和实践上都存在争议。布林克经常依赖的模范刑法典（MPC）要求国家在排除合理怀疑的情况下反驳辩护；此外，即使宪法允许，要求被告证明自己不承担责任在规范上肯定是有争议的。为什么让国家承担证明精神状态会导致错误行为的责任，然后要求被告说服陪审团她当时不负有责任，这是合理的？其次，与此相关的是，布林克没有注意到进攻/防守鸿沟的渗透性。布林克经常修正这样的论点，即被告即使在特定时刻缺乏行为能力，也可能因缺乏行为能力而受到指责，因此无权获得借口。但刑法并没有这么严格的规定。刑法，特别是MPC，不是简单地因为被告先前的过失而完全拒绝其借口，而是着眼于被告在损害发生时对特定损害的责任。也就是说，醉酒的演员并不需要对所有犯罪负责，仅仅因为她对自己的醉酒负责。例如，她可能仍然缺乏所需的犯罪行为的精神状态。刑法并不将责任简单地视为一个开关，一个人会因为过早的选择而失去借口。相反，这些早期选择的内容与可以指控的犯罪行为有关。最后，布林克指出了将借口的规模与刑法原则相协调的困难，但他未能充分认识到量刑自由裁量权的潜力。由于强制性最低限度和量刑增强，布林克在很大程度上不认为量刑是考虑细粒度减刑决定的论坛。然而，人们可能会质疑强制性最低标准是否像布林克所说的那样普遍存在。此外，现行法律的这一特点并不为报应主义者所认同。因此，至少从理论上讲，一个正常运作的量刑制度可以考虑减刑因素。刑法有更多的灰色地带，其分析也比布林克有时所认为的更为复杂，而未能认识到这一点有时会误解刑法的利害关系，从而阻碍对犯罪、辩护和犯罪进行更细致和流畅的分析。第三，所有借口真的都是为了“公平机会”吗？有一次，布林克做了一个值得深思的观察。他指出，“从某种意义上说，公平机会也激发了辩护的理由”（209）。正如他解释的那样：“当我犯下较轻的罪行时，我缺乏避免伤害的公平机会，而当我使用自卫击退一个有罪的侵略者时，他没有给我留下公平的机会来避免伤害他。通过这些方式，公平机会为一般辩护提供了理由，而不仅仅是借口”（209）。这是一个相当引人注目的观察，因为我认为，吞咽理由的借口观点至少表面上是有问题的。一方面，考虑到我们可能会否认某人因做了她不负责的事情而值得赞扬，因此人们质疑从事正当（并且可以说是正确的）行为的演员是否值得赞扬。另一方面，它要求我们问“公平机会”的运作方式对于胁迫、危急和自卫是否相同。较小的危害可能会被区分出来，因为旁观者根本不需要参与其中；胁迫和自卫则不然。或者，一些理论家认为胁迫更类似于正当理由而不是借口（Moore 2020：320）。该论点认为选择的限制使行动更接近允许，因此，补充性规范性损害将必须发挥作用，使被告超过辩解门槛；但考虑到这一行动已接近合理，因此不会花费太多时间。也就是说，选择的限制根本不是借口。更一般地说，这一观察结果对“公平机会”的单向模糊描述产生了怀疑。正如布林克指出的那样，刑法确实关心未来的公平性，正如其合法性原则所证明的那样，但公平性并不能对布林克的大部分论述起到解释作用。规范上不称职的代理人不对自己的不当行为负责的方式从根本上削弱了他们对犯罪行为的代理权。责怪他们固然不公平，但更重要的是不恰当。如果我不能责怪我的书摔倒了，那么责怪它是不公平的想法就没有切中要害。相反，书籍并不是合适的指责对象。当我们对那些妄想自己被魔鬼命令杀害自己的孩子的人或因盗窃癖而经历强烈的内在冲动的人不予责备时，我们并不是从认为这是不公平的想法开始的。相反，我们不会责怪，因为代理人没有责任，而责怪那些不负责任的人是不公平的。相比之下，当我们认为一个面临有限选择的人不应该受到责备时，她所处的不公平情况确实会造成很大的负担——考虑到她的选择，要求她不这样做是不公平的。布林克的观察揭示了这两种判断在性质上存在显着不同，即缺乏公平机会可能会导致理由成立。当一名特工确实能应对这种情况时，当她即使在选择有限的情况下也做了正确的事情时，这并不会从根本上削弱她的责任。我们确实赞扬行为正确的特工，即使情况不公平地强加给她。尽管我可能会以不同的方式编写这本书，并有时质疑刑法揭示的潜在道德，但我忍不住对布林克的成就感到惊叹。我想不出还有哪个作家能够如此系统地阐述如此多的道德和法律错综复杂的问题。它在所有对责任和刑法感兴趣的理论家的书架上占有一席之地。规范上不称职的代理人不对自己的不当行为负责的方式从根本上削弱了他们对犯罪行为的代理权。责怪他们固然不公平，但更重要的是不恰当。如果我不能责怪我的书摔倒了，那么责怪它是不公平的想法就没有切中要害。相反，书籍并不是合适的指责对象。当我们对那些妄想自己被魔鬼命令杀害自己的孩子的人或因盗窃癖而经历强烈的内在冲动的人不予责备时，我们并不是从认为这是不公平的想法开始的。相反，我们不会责怪，因为代理人没有责任，而责怪那些不负责任的人是不公平的。相比之下，当我们认为一个面临有限选择的人不应该受到责备时，她所处的不公平情况确实会造成很大的负担——考虑到她的选择，要求她不这样做是不公平的。布林克的观察揭示了这两种判断在性质上存在显着不同，即缺乏公平机会可能会成为理由。当一名特工确实能应对这种情况时，当她即使在选择有限的情况下也做了正确的事情时，这并不会从根本上削弱她的责任。我们确实赞扬行为正确的特工，即使情况不公平地强加给她。尽管我可能会以不同的方式编写这本书，并有时质疑刑法揭示的潜在道德，但我忍不住对布林克的成就感到惊叹。我想不出还有哪个作家能够如此系统地阐述如此多的道德和法律错综复杂的问题。它在所有对责任和刑法感兴趣的理论家的书架上占有一席之地。规范上不称职的代理人不对自己的不当行为负责的方式从根本上削弱了他们对犯罪行为的代理权。责怪他们固然不公平，但更重要的是不恰当。如果我不能责怪我的书摔倒了，那么责怪它是不公平的想法就没有切中要害。相反，书籍并不是合适的指责对象。当我们对那些妄想自己被魔鬼命令杀害自己的孩子的人或因盗窃癖而经历强烈的内在冲动的人不予责备时，我们并不是从认为这是不公平的想法开始的。相反，我们不会责怪，因为代理人没有责任，而责怪那些不负责任的人是不公平的。相比之下，当我们认为一个面临有限选择的人不应该受到责备时，她所处的不公平情况确实会造成很大的负担——考虑到她的选择，要求她不这样做是不公平的。布林克的观察揭示了这两种判断在性质上存在显着不同，即缺乏公平机会可能会成为理由。当一名特工确实能应对这种情况时，当她即使在选择有限的情况下也做了正确的事情时，这并不会从根本上削弱她的责任。我们确实赞扬行为正确的特工，即使情况不公平地强加给她。尽管我可能会以不同的方式编写这本书，并有时质疑刑法揭示的潜在道德，但我忍不住对布林克的成就感到惊叹。我想不出还有哪个作家能够如此系统地阐述如此多的道德和法律错综复杂的问题。它在所有对责任和刑法感兴趣的理论家的书架上占有一席之地。这并没有从根本上削弱她的责任。我们确实赞扬行为正确的特工，即使情况不公平地强加给她。尽管我可能会以不同的方式编写这本书，并有时质疑刑法揭示的潜在道德，但我忍不住对布林克的成就感到惊叹。我想不出还有哪个作家能够如此系统地阐述如此多的道德和法律错综复杂的问题。它在所有对责任和刑法感兴趣的理论家的书架上占有一席之地。这并没有从根本上削弱她的责任。我们确实赞扬行为正确的特工，即使情况不公平地强加给她。尽管我可能会以不同的方式编写这本书，并有时质疑刑法揭示的潜在道德，但我忍不住对布林克的成就感到惊叹。我想不出还有哪个作家能够如此系统地阐述如此多的道德和法律错综复杂的问题。它在所有对责任和刑法感兴趣的理论家的书架上占有一席之地。