3 - Risks and “Other Law” Beliefs

Summary

In our previous book, we claimed that our single crime approach avoided mistake of law problems. In this chapter we ask how our approach handles “other law” mistakes, mistakes about whether another’s interest that is put at risk by one’s act is really an interest that legally and morally warrants the actor’s concern. Mistakes about whether property really belongs to another is a classic example. We distinguish such mistakes from, for example, mistakes about what counts as morally effective consent.