Abstract
How might we account for the perennial and pervasive popularity of an appeal to intoxication for our moral failings? We invoke the excuse of intoxication for many acts of social and sexual impropriety, when we seek the exoneration, understanding, forgiveness or leniency of family, friends, colleagues, strangers and law enforcers, in informal situations, starting in the home, and formal ones, including courts of law. In this latter context, criminal offenders and their legal representatives persist in proffering the intoxication excuse even though the law officially rejects it.
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© 1998 Judith Rumgay
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Rumgay, J. (1998). The Intoxication Excuse: a Challenge to Reason?. In: Crime, Punishment and the Drinking Offender. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26919-8_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26919-8_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-26921-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-26919-8
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)