Awareness and the Recklessness/Negligence Distinction

Abstract The distinction between the criminal fault elements of recklessness and negligence is one Anglo-American law’s key distinctions. It a with practical significance, as many serious crimes require at least cannot be committed negligently. standardly marked by awareness. Recklessness requires awareness that one’s conduct carries risk harm. Negligence only ought to have been aware carried such risk, even if was in fact unaware this. But should recklessness/negligence or something else? Does defendant’s really normative significance mark distinction? In this paper, I answer these questions discussing challenge ‘standard account’ raised work Antony Duff, who defends an alternative, non-awareness-based model distinction. will argue that, although Duff’s alternative fails, seeing how it goes wrong helps us see genuinely does right kind negligence.