The Ground of Punishing Criminal Negligence in English Criminal Law Theory——The Standard of Criminal Negligence

There are two different points of affirmative and negative views about the ground of punishing criminal negligence in English criminal law theory.The negative view held on the basis of the theory of mental culpability that in the case of negligence the actor has no mental facts of knowing the harmful results,and as a result there is no ground to punish him.Whereas,the affirmative view held on the ground of the theory of social culpability that the nature of criminal negligence is the duties assigned to the social members not being carried out.The standard of negligence in the English criminal law theory processed from the objective to the union of the subjective and the objective.This article,based on the ground that the nature of culpability is objective,says no to the negative view based on the theory of mental culpability and yes to the affirmative view based on the social culpability in English criminal law theory.It also points out that the affirmative view has a tendency of departing from social culpability for emphasizing capacities and neglecting social duties and argues that the union of the subjective and the objective for the standard of negligence in the English criminal law theory is actually the objective view with reasonable ground.