Expertise
Prof Sarch's research tackles theoretical and doctrinal questions about the criminal law, with a particular emphasis on culpability, mental states and the fundamental limits on the reach of criminal liability. His published work, which often draws on moral philosophy, covers a range of topics including willful ignorance, the concurrence requirement, accomplice liability, corporate crime, well-being and blame, and his articles have appeared in a number of law reviews and peer-reviewed journals including Legal Theory, Law and Philosophy, University of Colorado Law Review, Penn State Law Review, Criminal Law and Philosophy, Philosophical Studies and Pacific Philosophical Quarterly.
Sarch's monograph Criminally Ignorant: Why the Law Pretends We Know What We Don't came out with Oxford University Press in 2019 and was the subject of a symposium issue in the journal Jurisprudence. In the book, he defends a culpability-based theory of why the law is justified in imputing mental states like knowledge or awareness of risks even when we don't actually possess those mental states. This surprising and controversial practice is justified, Sarch argues, when we are just as culpable, and culpable in the same way, as if we really did possess the missing mental states. Along the way, the book explores the normative foundations of criminal liability and critically examines widespread legal fictions in the criminal law.
Research Areas:
- Criminal Law
- Corporate Crime
- White Collar Crime
- Legal Theory
- Regulation of Artificial Intelligence