This book delves into the core debates of criminal law, examining fundamental principles such as legality, protection of legally protected goods, culpability, and proportionality. It reinterprets these principles through a lens of a Rawlsian theory of justice, proposing them as deontological liberalistic principles of justice. The book explores the influence of enlightenment thought and social contract theory which have sophisticatedly evolved so far on criminal law, suggesting that these principles can be derived from a hypothetical agreement under fair participation conditions. Covering a wide range of topics, the book addresses human dignity, culpability, and the prohibition of analogy in criminal law interpretation. It engages with classic and ongoing debates, including free will, legal indeterminacy, and the jurisprudential implication of philosophies of Wittgenstein and Gödel. Additionally, it critically examines some theoretical issues, including collective guilt, criminal liability of electronic person, psychopathic offender, and conscientious objectors, as well as such doctrinal issues as mistaken self-defence and criminal complicity. A chapter on the origins of the penal system provides an in-depth account based on ancient Near Eastern customs and the Hammurabi Code, enriched by the latest evolutionary research. This interdisciplinary approach offers a comprehensive understanding of the nature of punishment.
1 A Contractarian Justification of the Foremost Principles in Criminal
Law Based on the Rawlsian Scheme.- 2 Human Dignity and Principle of
Responsibility.- 3 Free Will and the Justification of Punishment.- 4 The
Scientific Basis of Responsibility and Retribution.- 5 Legal Indeterminacy
and the Rule of Law.- 6 The Realistic Significance of Possible Meanings of
Legal Texts.- 7 Jurisprudential Implications of Gödel's Theorem.
Seong Jo Ahn is currently a full professor of Criminal law & Procedure at Jeju National University Law School, and he was a visiting scholar at the Institute of European and Comparative Law, University of Oxford, UK, from 2023 to 2024. He has published four major works related to criminal law, the subtitles of which clearly show his research interests. The titles of the four volumes are as follows: Modern Criminal Law Vol. 1: Theory and Method, Modern Criminal Law Vol. 2: Criminal Law and Evolutionary Theory, Modern Criminal Law Vol. 3: Reviewing Freedom and Modernity in Criminal Law, and Modern Criminal Law Vol. 4: Essays on Criminal Law. From 2023 to 2025, he presented on the theme Reinterpreting the principle of nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege from a Rawlsian Perspective at the Criminal Law Discussion Group at the University of Oxford, and on the topic Putative Defence: A Comparative Study at the Seminar of the Institute of European and Comparative Law (IECL). He also presented on Mistaken Self-Defence at the Anglo-German Criminal Law Seminar, which was also held at the University of Oxford. In 2024 and 2025, he also addressed the philosophical grounds of criminal laws foremost principles at the world IVR conference and gave presentations at international conferences held in Beijing, China, on topics including A Comparative Study on the Treatment of Putative Defence and Criminal Liability of Electronic Persons. His works in 2025 include Mistakes in Criminal Law: Exploring Mistake of Law and Mistake of Fact.
