In the writing, “The Nature and Significance of Culpability” by David O. Brink, the themes of accountability and responsibility for crimes is examined under the lens of narrow, inclusive, and broad culpability. Brink first discusses how culpability is related to the “men rea” or “guilty action”. Culpability simply refers to what somebody intended to do by their actions, or are they responsible for the crime they have committed. Brinks points out that these principles are very important in criminal wrong, as they assign blameworthiness to a victim, meaning it determines whether they knew or were capable of acknowledging if what they were doing was right or wrong.
Brings then goes on to asses how culpability to tied to the actual punishment of a crime, and he claims that the “quantum of desert” is a product of the magnitude of the wrong doing and the degree to which that person was responsible for it (5). The writing then delves into how retributivism is tied to culpability, with retributivism basically saying that if a crime is committed then someone needs to suffer to some degree for retribution. Brinks believes that retributivism, to be fair, must asses the responsibility of the person who has committed the crime. On page 7 of the reading, Brinks states that, “A complete theory of punishment should address whom to punish, why we should punish, how much we should punish, and how we should punish.” This is furthered address by Brink’s introduction of the fairness to avoid wrong doing principle. This is also related to culpability because Brink’s states that the degree of control a person has over their actions in an important aspect to understanding responsibility. Fairness to avoid wrongdoing basically means whether a person was forced or coerced into committing a crime, and then devolves into whether that person was able to conceive of their actions as wrongdoing. One way that this idea is explained by brinks is the example of insanity, and how the basis of that defense argument is that the person being charged with the crime was at the time unable to understand the implications of what they were doing. One major theme that Brinks stresses in this writing is the idea that these three forms of culpability he discussed are complimentary, rather than serving as stand alone ways of understanding an issue.
