Strict Liability and the Paradoxes of Proportionality

This essay explores the case against strict liability offenses as part of the more general debate about proportional punishment. This debate takes on a very different look in light of a formal result derived by the authors elsewhere, that is briefly summarized and whose implications are pursued here. Traditional objections that consequentialists have mounted against the deontologists’/retributivists’ defense of proportionality fall by the wayside, but a new threat to the proportionality requirement replaces it: the ease with which any such requirement can be circumvented.