The Dialogic Community at Dusk

Abstract

Alan Brudner’s Hegelian theory of the “general part” of the criminal law offers a convincing explanation of the form taken by criminal law doctrine in liberal states. Brudner explains the general part’s elements in terms of three paradigms of individual freedom that together form what he calls a “dialogic community.” I argue here that the prevalence of harm-prevention offenses in the U.K.’s actual penal law demonstrates that there is a fundamental tension between these paradigms of freedom, one that has undermined the claims made for doctrine, the unity of the dialogic community, and the liberal state’s commitment to individual freedom.