DIE BEDEUTUNG VON „KÖNNEN“ BEI FAHRLÄSSIGKEIT UND SCHULD
THE MEANING OF “(S)HE COULD HAVE” IN NEGLIGENCE AND GUILT

Summary/Abstract: In connection with criminal negligence, the focus is regularly on whether the perpetrator “could have” recognized and avoided the situation he brought about, whether (s)he “could have” acted more carefully or complied with the requirements of due diligence. When examining guilt, it is also important (in the case of intentional as well as negligent offenses) whether the perpetrator “could have” recognized the wrongfulness of his/her act and “could have” acted according to this insight. If the “(s)he could have” perspective is rejected, the offender remains unpunished. On the other hand, there is a controversy regarding the extent humans can freely choose their perceptions and behaviour at all or whether these are ultimately determined by external and internal circumstances. The article explores the question of how a “(s)he could have” requirement can be conceived in law and especially in criminal law in a way that remains unaffected by the unsolved debate between “free will” and “determinism”. The author proposes that in the phrase “(s)he could have” the word “can” should not be understood in the (indeterministic) sense of alternative perceptions or behaviour, but simply as the existence of specific psycho-physical properties which, according to empirical knowledge, are necessary for compliance with a norm, just as it can be said, for example, that someone “can” speak French or that he “can” play the piano. It is also compatible with the function of “punishment” in modern (secular) criminal law to understand the “(s)he could have” requirement of punishability as a mere statement about existing, empirically ascertainable psychophysical properties of a person (and in this way to decouple it from the problem of determinism).

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