Crim Law and Philos (2007) 1:2139

DOI 10.1007/s11572-006-9001-2
ORIGINAL PAPER

Excuses, excuses
Marcia Baron

Published online: 14 November 2006

Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006

Abstract Justifications and excuses are defenses that exculpate. They are therefore
much more like each other than like such defenses as diplomatic immunity, which
does not exculpate. But they exculpate in different ways, and it has proven difficult
to agree on just what that difference consists in. In this paper I take a step back from
justification and excuse as concepts in criminal law, and look at the concepts as they
arise in everyday life. To keep the task manageable, I focus primarily on excuses and
excusing activities, distinguishing them from justifications as well as from other close
relatives, in particular, forgiving and pardoning. I draw upon J.L. Austins classic
A Plea for Excuses, but expand on his account, suggesting that we offer excuses
for reasons besides those he mentions. My hope is that my examination of excuses
and excusing activities will help us rethink our views on just how justifications and
excuses differ, views which often are worked out without much attention to how
these concepts function in everyday life and to the connection between offers of
excuses and justifications and the rules of civility.
Keywords Justification Excuse Civility Forgiving Pardoning
Holding responsible Exempting Blaming J.L. Austin

1. Justifications and excuses are defenses that exculpate. They are therefore much
more like each other than like such defenses as diplomatic immunity, which does not
exculpate. But they exculpate in different ways, and it has proven difficult to agree
on just what that difference consists in. In this paper I take a step back from justification and excuse as concepts in criminal law, and look at the concepts as they arise
in everyday life. To keep the task manageable, Ill focus primarily on excuses and

M. Baron (&)
Department of Philosophy, Indiana University Bloomington, Sycamore Hall 026, 1033 E,
Third Street, Bloomington, IN 47405-7005, USA
e-mail: mbaron@indiana.edu

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excusing activities. Justifications will enter in secondarily, for the purpose of distinguishing excuses from their close relatives.
Ive chosen this topic partly because it is interesting in its own right (and because
a rereading of Austins A Plea for Excuses inspired me), and partly because of a
hope that such a study will bear fruit for criminal law theory,1 perhaps in one or
more of the following ways. A better understanding of the borders between excusing
and its neighbors may improve our grasp of why defenses, such as provocation, that
are confusing (confusing in ways that raise questions about what exactly their content should be), are confusing. Relatedly, the reasons for discontent over certain
ways of explicating other defenses and adapting them to fit cases to which they seem
not to apply as they should2 may emerge more clearly when we examine our practices of excusing; better solutions may emerge, as well. I shall not explore these
possibilities here, nor the related possibility that we can better evaluate our sentencing practicesmore specifically, our bases for mitigation, and perhaps for
pardon and for paroleif we have a clearer sense of our excusing practices outside
of the context of criminal law and of the differences between excusing and near
relatives, such as forgiving.
I also hope that an examination of excuses will lead some of us to revise our views
on how justifications and excuses differ and what exactly excuses areand I do not
exempt my own views. But I also recognize that my views are bound to shape this
inquiry, since they affect my collection and interpretation of the data. For that
reason, I should declare them before proceeding further. (I underscore that it is not
the aim of this paper to defend them, nor is it my aim to retain them.)
First, I think that there is a meaningful distinction between justifications and
excuses, and that it is important to be able to employ both concepts in relation to
past conduct.3
Second, I hold that if an action is justified, it is, all things considered, not wrong.
I thus reject the view, held by some legal theorists, that to be justified an action has
to be better than merely permissible.4
Third, to excuse is to say that what the agent did was wrong, or at least untoward,
but that it would be unfair to blame him for the action. Why would it be unfair? My
answer (provisionally) is: It is because of certain features of the agent (features that
are distinctive, not features that are true of most adult humans), or certain features
of the situation together with features assumed to be true of most humans (including
1

That hope reflects a belief that the concepts of justification and excuse should function in law at
least roughly the way they do in everyday life. This is not to deny that the moral concepts we employ
in everyday life might need to be cleaned up; my idea is not that we should enshrine in criminal law
moral concepts (much less, conceptions) as they are accepted and employed in everyday life.
Likewise, I am not claiming that whatever excuses in an extra-legal context should also excuse in the
criminal law; for one thing, sometimes what excuses in everyday life will get one off, but by defeating
the mens rea, rather than by excusing. Nor am I claiming (nor do I think it true) that exculpatory
concepts should have the same application or extension in criminal law that they have in other
contexts. I am grateful to Antony Duff for prompting me to clarify my view.

For instance the self-defense claims of battered women who kill their batterers when they are
asleep or otherwise off guard, and the resistance some of us have to subjective standards as a solution
to the problem posed by such cases.

This is not to deny that they are often hard to distinguish, and that many defenses involve elements
of both justification and excuse.

See e.g. Finkelstein (1996), Robinson (1988, p. 665). For an excellent discussion of Finkelsteins
essay, see Pendleton (1996), especially pp. 664665.

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the agent in question). Excuses divide, accordingly, into two types: (a) those
(insanity being the paradigmatic instance) that come into play because of some
feature of the actor that differentiates him from most adults and makes it very
difficult for him to act as the law requires, and (b) those (such as duress) that come
into play because the situation was such that it was extremely difficult for that actor
and would be extremely difficult for most actors to avoid acting wrongly or unlawfully.
This sketch does not aim to lay out sufficient conditions. Many details would
need to be added, including constraints on what sorts of actions can be thus
excused (for some crimes might be too heinous to be excusable, at least on the
sorts of grounds that (b) covers, while others, though not quite that bad, might be
heinous enough that they are excusable only if the level of difficulty is exceptionally high). One of the more interesting constraints governing (b) is that
depending on the particular responsibilities the actor has accepted and the particular circumstances, the fact that it would be extremely difficult for most actors
and is extremely difficult for her to avoid acting wrongly might not suffice to
excuse her. In certain circumstances, more is expected of a firefighter than of the
rest of us; in others, more is expected of someone trained in self-defense than of
the rest of us; and so on. An added twist is that we sometimes relax the
requirement and allow (e.g.) a duress defense for teenagers when we would not
allow it for adults.5
A further background beliefsubject to revisionthat shapes this paper is that
justification does not require truth, but does require reasonable belief. Thus,
whereas some legal theorists hold that if Joe reasonably but mistakenly believed
that Jack was attacking him and used force to thwart what he took to be an attack,
Joe has an excuse for having so acted but was not justified, I want to say that he
was justified.6
A word is in order as to just what I am doing in this paper. Is it linguistic analysis?
Not exactly. I am not particularly interested in the difference between saying
He clumsily trod on the snail, and Clumsily he trod on the snail (not to mention
He trod clumsily on the snail and He trod on the snail clumsily) (Austin, 1979, p.
199). I am interested in examining when and why and how we offer excusesand tell
S that he has an excuse, and suggest to T that we should excuse S. I have also come,
through working on this topic, to pay attention to just what it is that we do with
excuses: we offer them, claim to have them; we excuse others, but do we confer them
on others? And when we ask others to excuse us, are we asking them for an excuse?
Or are we asking them to recognize that excusing conditions apply? More on that
shortly.

2. Data collecting is often complicated by unclarities about what counts as a datum

of the sort under investigation. That is certainly the case here, where the question
5

See Hudson and Taylor [1971] 2 QB 202. I thank Michelle Madden Dempsey for bringing this case
to my attention.

6
See Baron (2005a). I also believethough this will not be at issue in this paperthat it is
important to preserve the distinction between affirmative or true defenses (both justifications and
excuses), and defenses that negate the mens rea or the actus reus of the offense: see Dressler (2001,
pp. 201202).

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of what counts as an excuse (more precisely, as an excusing activity), is complicated

not only by disagreements concerning (among other things) whether an action based
on a false but reasonable belief can be justified, or only excused, but also by the
rules of civility. To illustrate, Ill quote a passage from an article by Douglas Husak.
Consider everyday situations in which persons request an excuse. Sneezing
or coughing in public, or accidentally brushing someone in a crowded place,
provide typical occasions in which persons utter the words excuse me.
What implications do speakers convey by this utterance? Anyone who asks
to be excused after he accidentally jostles someone on a sidewalk would be
surprised to learn that his words concede that his act was unjustified. A
speaker would be especially vehement in resisting this alleged implication if
told that unjustified acts are wrongful. More likely, he would insist he did
nothing wrong at all. The theorist may be puzzled about how the speaker
could believe an excuse to be appropriate in these circumstances. But as
long as our criterion of accuracy is what speakers of English say, it is the
theorist, and not the speaker of English, who should be puzzled. In light of
this linguistic evidence, commentators who purport to be guided by such
usage must be prepared to revise their views.7
Without endorsing the view that ordinary language is an appropriate criterion of
accuracy, Husak is challenging the claim that ordinary language supports the thesis
that justifications and excuses are mutually exclusive. My concern is with his
assumption that the examples he offers are instances of requesting an excuse.8
Perhaps they are; but it is by no means evident that that is the case. Excuse me,
said when we have coughed, or have accidentally jostled someone, is a polite
utterance,9 rather like Gesundheit or God bless you, said when someone else
sneezes. We need to be cautious about inferring much from such utterances, and it
is not at all clear that we should count Excuse me as requesting (or offering) an
excuse. I will bracket such uses, and simply point out that the fact that the word
excuse is used does not establish that we have a case of offering or requesting an
excuse.

3. Although I dont think that Excuse me is a good place to begin an examination of excuses, I do not want to ignore the relevance of rules of civility to
excusing activities. To give civility its due, Ill examine some instances of offering
7

Husak (2005, p. 566). I should add that Excuse me apparently has a different connotation and a
rather different use in Britain than it does in the US. In Britain one would say Sorry, or Pardon me
rather than Excuse me in such circumstances as those in Husaks examples, while Excuse me
[please] would more typically be used when asking someone for directions or the time, or requesting
of someone that he step to one side so that one can rush past (e.g. to catch ones fleeing toddler, or a
train or plane). Indeed, saying Excuse me in Britain (in circumstances where in the US it is quite
appropriate) can suggest that one thinks the addressee is (slightly) in the wrong, perhaps that she is
where she should not be. I thank Jeanine Grenberg and Anthony Rudd for pointing this out to me.

There is a further problem with Husaks challenge. As Austin warned in A Plea for Excuses, it
will pay us to take nothing for granted or as obvious about negations and opposites (1979, pp. 191
192). Husak assumes that if the coughing is not justified, it must be unjustified; but there is no reason
to assume that one word or the other must fit.

I am speaking here of American English.

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an excuse that are similar to the examples Husak gives, in that they are generally
motivated by a sense of civility, but different in that they are clearly not just
polite utterances.
Consider the following scenario: I arrive ten minutes late to a department
meeting. I later say to my department chair, Im sorry, but when I picked my son up
from school, his teacher wanted to talk with me, and I just couldnt get away. In fact,
this is not exactly accurate; I was happy to talk with the teacher, and although I knew
it was a possibility to say to her, I have to rush to a department meeting; can we talk
another time? I chose not to. Knowing how hard it is to schedule a meeting with her,
I thought it unwise to postpone the conversation even though it meant arriving late
to the meeting. What is important here is that I believed I did the right thing (or at
least, did not act wrongly), but knew it would be rude to say that to the Chair. So I
offered an excuse, despite believing that I was justified. As I am envisioning it, this
was not something I calculated; it is something I just found myself saying, because we
frequently offer an excuse (without meaning to deceive or even mislead), despite
believing ourselves justified.10
It is striking how often civility calls for offering an excuse for ones conduct even
though one believes that one was justified.11 The underlying reason for so acting may
vary. Sometimes it is to avoid causing hurt feelings; sometimes it is to avoid taking a
stand along the lines of X is more important than Y, where X and Y are either
competing reasons or competing courses of conduct. The speaker might not want to
open herself up to a challenge (Did you really think it more important to talk on the
phone with Heidi than to be on time to meet me for lunch?)12
This point must be borne in mind when we try to read off certain beliefs from the
fact that the agent put forward an excuse. That the agent puts forward an excuse
while believing she acted justifiably does not show that she believes that her conduct
was excusable as well as justifiable. Thus, contrary to Husak, it does not undermine
the claim that ordinary language supports the thesis that justifications and excuses
are mutually exclusive.13

10
Antony Duff questions whether this really is a case of offering an excuse despite believing oneself
justified, rather than offering a justification in an excusatory way (2006, p. xx). That is a good
question, but I believe that the fundamental point I make holds either way: although we believe
ourselves justified, we couch our explanation of why we acted as we did as an excuse, or in an
excusatory way; we do not present it straightforwardly as a justification.
11

Not that it always does or even typically does. It does not in a frank or self-probing discussion with
a close friend, nor in a situation where you are challenged or accused, and believe you were justified
in acting as you did.
12
Of course one is still vulnerable to a similar challenge if one pleads an excuse: Why couldnt you
just tell her that you had to meet someone and would call her later? But pleading, I guess I should
have; I just couldnt see a way to cut in like that is usually safer than arguing that it was more
important to talk to her.
13
Although it is not my aim here to defend that thesis, I want to be clear on what it meansmore
precisely, what it has to mean if it is going to be defensible. One might try spelling it out as follows:
one cannot both be justified in doing x and have an excuse for doing x. But that is not quite right. The
idea, rather, is that if I act justifiably in doing x, my action is not aptly described as excusable. Once
we ascertain that it is justifiable, it is not correct to call it excusable. So, why is it a mistake to say that
I cannot both be justified in doing x and have an excuse for doing x? Because I can have an excuse
in the sense that were I not justified in doing x, an excusing condition would apply. E.g., a child might
lash out at someone in self-defense, and we might also say (depending on the childs age) that if it
were not justifiable self-defense, nonetheless an excusing condition (infancy) would apply.

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4. So far I have talked only about offering excuses for ones own conduct. It is
striking that while civility often militates in favor of explaining ones own conduct in an excusatory way even though one thinks it justified, things are quite
different when one is addressing another, speaking with her about her conduct.
Civility never calls for telling someone she has an excuse if one believes her
justified (unless one is advising her on tacticson her options vis-a`-vis an accuser). Unless we are arrogant, condescending, or simply keen on putting the
other person down, we do not tell her that she has an excuse if we see her
conduct to have been justified, and hesitate to do so if we are uncertain whether
she was justified.
Likewise, if someone suggests to us that what we did is excusable when we
believe it to be justified, we will not be pleased (unless we are so relieved not to be
blamed that we do not mind being thought to have done something for which an
excuse is needed). Imagine someone saying, Everyone realizes you have a good
excuse for what you did; after all, youve been unwell for some time [youre very
new at this/that new drug the doctor put you on has made you very sluggish]. If
you think what you did was justified, thenespecially if you dont think it was just
borderline justified, i.e., that it just made it into the realm of the permissibleyou
will very likely be miffed.14 You will probably feel like saying (even if you opt not
to), But what I did was not wrong, so why are you trying to explain my conduct in
terms of illness? We generally prefer to have others think of our conduct as
justified rather than as excusable.15 This is because when someone tells us that
they, or others, excuse us for something we did, they think that we did something
we should not have done.16
Ill turn shortly to Austins account of excuses. But first I want to locate excuses,
or more precisely, excusing, in relation to forgiving.

5. Being forgiven is like being excused in the respect just mentioned: if we believe we
have done nothing wrong, we bristle (or are puzzled) if someone says she forgives us.
What distinguishes being forgiven from being excused? A first guess might
be that forgiveness concerns graver matters. One would not ask to be excused
for having (say) caused the death of the neighbors child by driving too
quickly into the driveway, not noticing the child was there; but one might ask
to be forgiven.
Although this is part of the story, it is only partand a rather superficial part, at
that. As Jeffrie Murphy has pointed out, the conditions under which forgiving is an
option are disjoint from those under which excusing is. He explains, We may forgive
only what it is initially proper to resent; and, if a person has done nothing wrong or

14
Note that my assumption that an action is justified so long as it is permissible affects this sentence
and the following one.
15

Generally, not invariably: see Baron (2005b, pp. 605609).

16

Another reason, applying to some, but not all instances of being excused, is that we prefer to be
engaged by others in a way that engages our reasons and engages us as rational beings. I thank to
Sophia Reibetanz for suggesting this additional reason. I say that this applies only to some instances
because not all grounds on which people are excused involve, as Strawson puts it, a suspension of
ordinary reactive attitudes. See Strawson (1968).

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was not responsible for what he did, there is nothing to resent.17 What we forgive is
not something that we could instead have excused, and vice versa, because to excuse
is to say this: What was done was morally wrong; but, because of certain factors
about the agent (e.g., that he is insane), it would be unfair to hold the wrongdoer
responsible or blame him for the wrong action (Murphy, 1988, p. 20). Although I
would take issue with his explanation of why it would be unfairI dont think it has
to be because of certain factors about the agentI agree that to excuse past conduct
is to say that it would be unfair to hold the wrongdoer responsible for the action or to
blame him for it. And thus, since there was nothing to resent, there is nothing to
forgive.18
But I also want to draw attention to structural differences between excusing and
forgiving. One can only be forgiven by someone. One cannot have forgiveness
without having someones forgiveness. By contrast, an excuse is something that one
can have without having received it from anyone. In fact, it may be that an excuse is
something that one can have only without having it from someone. Whether that is
the case Ill consider later.19
How does being justified compare, in this respect, to being excused and to being
forgiven? It differs from both, but is more like being excused. One can be forgiven
by another (or by oneself), and in no other way. By contrast, justification can never
17
Murphy (1988, p. 20). I do not endorse the implication that when one is excused one is not
responsible for what he did, unless this means only that one should not be held responsible for what
one did. In Getting Even (Murphy, 2003), Murphy clearly takes the view that being excused entails
that one was not a fully responsible agent: To regard conduct as excused...is to admit that the
conduct was wrong but to claim that the person who engaged in the conduct lacked substantial
capacity to conform his conduct to the relevant norms and thus was not a fully responsible agent.
But clearly this is not true of some excuses, e.g., duress; there is no reason to think that the person
who acted under duress was not a fully responsible agent. Whether it is true of any excuses is
debatable, but it is evident that it is not true of all. The part of the passage from Murphys Forgiveness and Resentment quoted above that I do endorsethat we may forgive only what it is
initially proper to resent and that if a person has done nothing wrong, there is nothing to
resentMurphy retracts in Getting Even. He writes that he now thinks it a mistake to define
forgiveness so narrowly. It is more illuminating...to think of forgiveness as overcoming a variety of
negative feelings that one might have toward a wrongdoerresentment, yes, but also such feelings as
anger, hatred, loathing, contempt, indifference, disappointment, or even sadness (2003, p. 59). I do
not see how overcoming indifference, disappointment, or sadness could amount to forgiveness,
although I can see the point of saying that forgiveness requires that one overcome not only ones
resentment but also these other emotions, if one has them (though the criterion is then perhaps too
stringent; cant I forgive yet still feel sad about what happened?). His earlier account was better:
unless one overcomes ones resentment, one does not forgive. Self-forgiveness, of course, is different:
it need not involve the overcoming of resentment, and indeed it is hard to see how it could. Perhaps
it is reflection on self-forgiveness that leads some to favor a broader account of forgiveness. But we
neednt take that route; an alternative is to acknowledge that self-forgiveness is somewhat different
from forgiveness, perhaps better understood as self-acceptance that has been attained through
overcoming (e.g.) self-hatred.
18
See also Strawson (1968, p. 76): To ask to be forgiven is in part to acknowledge that the attitude
displayed in our actions was such as might properly be resented and in part to repudiate that attitude
for the future (or at least for the immediate future); and to forgive is to accept the repudiation and to
forswear the resentment. This seems right, with the qualification that one can forgive even if the
person one is forgiving has not repudiated his objectionable attitude.
19
A related concept is pardon. The noun pardon functions more like forgiveness than like excuse: a pardon is issued to someone, and issued in a discretionary way. I beg your pardon and I beg
your forgiveness, but I do not beg your excuse; I put forward an excuse in my defense but do not put
forward a pardon (though I could put forward the fact that I have been pardoneda different matter
altogether).

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be bestowed by another (though another can be instrumental in its coming to be the

case that one is justified). Excuse seems somewhere in between: one can have an
excuse without being excused by another (or by oneself), but perhaps not only that
way.
As noted, being forgiven and being excused have in common this feature: if told
you are forgiven, or excused, when you think that what you did was justified, you
are likely to resent this (especially if you are told that you are forgiven). One
exception comes to mind: perhaps what you did was, all things considered, justified, as the lesser of two evils; nonetheless, it wounded me terribly, and Ill never
be the same.20 It is plausible to claim that I have standing to forgive you despite
your having been justified in acting as you did. When one opts for the lesser of two
evils, there may still be someone to apologize to, someone who has standing to
forgive. There is a moral cost, and if the cost is large and not well distributed,
those who bear the brunt of it are at the very least owed an apology. There is thus
indeed something to forgive (or to decide not to forgive) even though the action
was justified.
This exception applies only to forgiving, not to excusing. In a situation where we
feel wronged, yet recognize that the person who wronged us might have indeed
chosen the lesser of two evils and thus be justified, it makes sense to wonder whether
to forgive him, but not whether to excuse him. Why is this? Part of the explanation is
an extension of a point drawn from Murphy: that you bore the brunt of the evil
creates logical space for anger and resentment and thus also for you to overcome the
anger and resentment, and thus forgive; but it doesnt create any space for excusing.21
Also relevant is the fact that forgiving is more personal than excusing, and more
discretionary. Only certain people have standing to forgive the wrongdoer, and they
have standing because they were wronged by him or her or are stand-ins for the
wronged person(s). Within limits, whether to forgive the wrongdoer is up to the
person who has standing to forgive. I say within limits because a person can fail in a
particular instance to forgive when forgiveness is clearly called for. Excusing is quite
different; one needs no special standing vis-a`-vis the wrong or the wrongdoer to
excuse. Moreover, to say We excuse you is usually to say We recognize that
excusing conditions apply or We recognize that you have an excuse/should be
excused. To excuse is thus generally not to confer on another an excuse, but to
recognize that the person has an excuse.
A closely related structural difference between excusing and forgiving is that
excuses are generally something we offer for our conduct, not something we request,
except when we request excuses in the sense of exemptions. By contrast, forgiveness
20
This thought was inspired by Williams (1981), but is a little different from his suggestion. I am
imagining that A might acknowledge that Bs conduct was justified but still feel wronged and have
standing to forgive B, and I am supposing that As complaint can be justified even though B was
justified in acting as he did. Williams claim about justification is different: As complaints are
justified and A may quite properly refuse to accept the agents justification which the rest of us may
properly accept (1981, p. 37).
21
One might challenge this claim, arguing that the person who bore the brunt of that lesser evil
could have opted to overlook the fact that the agent caused her so much pain, and in so doing excuse
him. I dont think that would be an instance of excusing. Overlooking misconduct may be a way of
excusing (as I suggest in Sect. 8), but I doubt that overlooking the fact that conduct that I recognize
as justified imposed great hardship on me can be.

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can only be requested (or offered by the party doing the forgiving). (Ill revisit the
claims in this paragraph and the last in Sects. 7 and 8.)
Having located excuses in relation to forgiving and to justification, I want to
acknowledge another near relative from which both offering an excuse and
offering a justification should be distinguished: giving an explanation of ones
conduct (or of anothers conduct) that is merely an explanation. It is often not
clear whether someone is merely explaining, rather than defending, her conduct,
but nonetheless (indeed partly because of that) the distinction needs to be borne in
mind.

6. I turn now to Austins account, specifically to the answers that he gives to the
following questions: When, then, do we excuse conduct, our own or somebody
elses? When are excuses proffered? He answers:
In general, the situation is one where someone is accused of having done
something, or (if that will keep it any cleaner), where someone is said to have
done something which is bad, wrong, inept, unwelcome, or in some other of the
numerous possible ways untoward. Thereupon he, or someone on his behalf,
will try to defend his conduct or to get him out of it (Austin, 1979, pp. 175176).
Austin then explains that one may defend ones conduct by arguing that what he did
was in fact not bad, thus offering a justification, or by admitting that it wasnt a good
thing to have done but asserting that it is not quite fair or correct to say baldly X
did A, thus offering an excuse. The reason why it is not quite fair or correct might
be that X was under somebodys influence, or was nudged; alternatively, the
incorrectness might attach to the word did in X did A, as when the action was
partly accidental, or an unintentional slip. Or it might be that it isnt fair to say he
did simply Ahe was really doing something quite different and A was only incidental, or he was looking at the whole thing quite differently (Austin, 1979, p. 176).
A few paragraphs later: In the one defence, briefly, we accept responsibility but
deny that it was bad: in the other, we admit that it was bad but dont accept full, or
even any, responsibility (1979, p. 181). (He hedges later, saying that the term
responsibility seems not really apt in all cases: I do not exactly evade responsibility
when I plead clumsiness or tactlessness, nor, often, when I plead that I only did it
unwillingly or reluctantly.... (1979, p. 181).)
Notice how Austin goes about answering his questions. He zeroes in on cases
where someone is said to have done something untoward, and where either he or
someone else tries to defend his conduct or get him out of it. Offering an excuse is
one way this is done. Austins approach limits his discussion of excuses to instances
where an excuse is offered to defend someone. As I hope to show, we offer excuses
for reasons besides those he mentions. I dont intend this mainly as a criticism of
Austin; he said In general, and I see myself as expanding on his account rather than
challenging it.

6.1 Austin speaks only of offers of excuses, for oneself or someone else, that are
reactive, responding to an accusation. This leaves out several things. First, we
sometimes offer an excuse to someone (either for ourselves or for a third party) in
anticipation of an accusation, or because we suspect the person is silently harboring a

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complaint against us (or against the third party). Also not covered are excuses
offered while, or even before, we are engaged in the conduct in question.
Excuses offered for something one is doing, or is about to do, frequently have a
slightly different function than those Austin highlights. Often they are pleas not to
be judged harshly, or not to be misunderstood (and this is sometimes true of excuses
offered after the deed, as well).22 We see this in Damned for All Time, sung by
Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar just before he tells the priests where they can find
Jesus. Although it is a little unusual as an example of pleading for understanding, in
that Judas is asking for reassurance from those least likely to disapprove of what he
is doing, this is not entirely anomalous. It is not uncommon to realize at some level
that what one is doing is at least morally dubious, yet want to believe otherwise; one
may, as Judas does, elicit assurance where one has the best hope of getting it in an
attempt to silence ones doubts. Judas tells the priests:
I came because I had to Im the one who saw
Jesus cant control it like he did before
And furthermore I know that Jesus thinks so too
Jesus wouldnt mind that I was here with you
I have no thought at all about my own reward
I really didnt come here of my own accord
Just dont say Im
Damned for all time23
Note too the blend of excuse and justification components, a blend not uncommon in
defenses, but unusually striking here. Judas puts forward a justification in a desperate attempt to convince himself that he is indeed acting permissibly; at the same
time, he is trying to exonerate himself via an excuse. The excuse component is most
prominent in I really didnt come here of my own accord (and is depicted in the film
by tanks that force Judas towards the priests). Ill comment shortly on I have no
thought at all about my own reward. The rest of the lyrics I have quoted are an
attempt to justify, not excuse, except for the repeated plea, Just dont say Im
damned for all time, a plea that reveals his awareness that he is not really justified.

6.2 I have been focusing so far on the first sentence in the quotation from Austin,
pointing out that we also offer excuses when we anticipate criticism, and sometimes
during or even before the objectionable action, as Judas does. The lyrics in Damned
for All Time also show that the second sentence in the quotation...he, or
someone on his behalf, will try to defend his conduct or to get him out of itgives a
slightly limited picture, for it happens quite often that one seeks to thwart an
inference from ones conduct to ones character or to ones sentiments (often ones
sentiments towards the other person). This is especially common when one is not
responding to an (overt) accusation, but guessing that the other person is silently
judging one, or anticipating that the other will form a negative judgment unless
something is done to put the matter in a favorable light. The aim may thus be not
primarily to defend ones conduct or get oneself out of it, but to show that it does
22
Austins remark that I do not exactly evade responsibility when I plead clumsiness (1979, p. 181)
might be hinting at this point.
23

Damned for All Time, lyrics by Tim Rice, from Jesus Christ Superstar, October 1970.

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not reflect as badly on one as some might think, or more generally, that it does not
mean what it might appear to mean. Thus Judas insists, I have no thought at all
about my own reward (and explains, Jesus cant control it like he did before) in an
effort to show that his motives are not self-interested.
An answer to the question When do we offer excuses? thus needs to include the
following: It is common to offer excuses before anyone has raised an objection, when
we know that what we have done is not (or might be thought not to be) all that it
should be. It is common to do so with the goal not of disowning what we didthough that happens toobut of showing that what we did has an explanation, an
explanation we want the other person to hear lest he take as the correct explanation
one that reflects badly on us, or specifically on our attitude towards him.
It bears emphasis that a lot of our excusing activity is aimed at reassuring others
that we take them seriously, value our friendship with them, and care for them. For
instance, a friend who has not replied to my e-mails and phone call might say, when
she finally does write, Im really sorry I havent been in touch. My nephew died last
summer, and life has only begun to be back to normal for me. Her aim was probably
not to defend herself in the face of an anticipated accusation, but to let me know that
her failure to write should not be thought to indicate that she does not value our
friendship.24 One last example, of a different sort: someone says to you, when you
present a paper to his department, Im sorry I cant stay for the discussion of your
paper; I have a nine-month old baby at home and need to get back. Now he might
be offering a justification dressed up as an excuse, but more likely, he is offering an
explanation so that you will not think that he left because he did not like your paper.
Here again the aim is to guard against a misreading of the agents sentiments or
beliefs, a misreading which, if not corrected, might cause unnecessary offense, reflect
badly on the agent or damage the relationship.

7. I have brought out some respects in which Austins way of addressing his questions limits his account of excuses. In addition, the questions themselves are somewhat limiting. He asks, When, then, do we excuse conduct, our own or somebody
elses? When are excuses proffered? These are certainly good questions to ask,
but they focus our attention entirely on one way that we excuse people: we excuse
people for their conduct, for something they have done. Yet we excuse people not
only for something (having done x), but also from something (having to do y). To
excuse someone from some activity typically is to exempt her from something that
she would otherwise have been required to do, though it is worth noting another way
we speak of excusing someone from something: one may be excused from (e.g.) a
meeting or a jury, meaning that she is not permitted to remain in the meeting or on
the jury. (This euphemistic use of excuse is similar to another euphemism: we
relieve someone of her responsibilities.)
In this section I examine excuses that take the form of exemptions, keeping in
mind a question that I raised earlierAre bestowing excuses on others and
requesting excuses among the things we do with excuses?and attending to the
variety of ways we exempt.
24
No doubt she also wants to let me know of her nephews death, but the fact that she brings it up to
explain why she has not been in touch with me in quite some time indicates that more than that is
going on.

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7.1 Someone might be excused from a departmental duty because of his time-consuming work on a college committee, a health problem, or because he is coming up
for tenure soon and needs extra time at this critical juncture in his career. Excusing
someone in this sense amounts to exempting him from what would otherwise be a
requirement, or at least an expectation.
The exempting I have just described is quite specific and explicit: We excuse you
from x. But we also excuse in a less explicit, clear-cut way. While I might announce
to my teenage son, Youre excused from washing the dishes, since you have an exam
tomorrow, I might instead simply make allowances, and not just today, but over a
longer period of time, perhaps because he has so much homework this year, or is
practicing a musical instrument so assiduously that I hate to undercut that by
pushing him to do the chores I had asked him to do. I might, then, excuseperhaps
by overlookinghis having done only a few dishes. I decide, as we say, to give him
some slack.
Now, in the two examples of explicit exempting, is it correct to say that the
person is given an excuse, or that an excuse is bestowed on him? Not exactly.
The chair excuses the untenured colleague, or I excuse my son, but what this
gives them is not an excuse, but a permission. The same holds, I believe, for all
explicit exemptions. Suppose you excuse me from a requirement (e.g., to go to a
meeting), and someone later asks me disapprovingly, Why werent you at the
meeting? I do not offer an excuse when I explain, I was told by the Chair that
there was no need for me to attend. Rather, I convey that I did nothing
impermissible.
Things are different if an exemption is of the less explicit, less clear-cut variety,
since such exemptions do not provide permission to do something otherwise not
permitted. So is the person in such cases given an excuse (albeit possibly only a
partial one)? Almost, but not quite. Because the exemptions are not clear-cut, the
agent cannot claim an excuse. The exemption provides her with a basis for an
excusea ground for hoping that she will be excusedand a consideration to point
to in pleading with another to excuse her. She asks to be excused,25 citing as a
consideration in her favor the feature in virtue of which she tends to be given some
slack (at least by some people).

7.2 Many general, non-explicit exemptions are group-based. Here the exemption is
likely to be from a general expectation, rather than from an explicit demand or
requirement. Absent-minded professors, for instance, are often accorded some
allowances that probably would not be accorded to schoolteachers, accountants, or
real estate agents. They are not officially excused from keeping straight the things
that people are usually supposed to keep straight, but there is a bit more latitude for
them. Those regarded as geniuses are often given even more latitude (especially if
they are quirky). The basis for this can be respect for the great contributions they are
making (or anticipation of great contributions), conjoined with the notion that
geniuses are less able to make these contributions if they are held to the same
standards as others; alternatively (or conjoined to this) it may also involve a belief
that geniuses are incompetent at the tasks in question.
25
A further complication: it is a feature of our excusing practices that asking to be excused
sometimes backfires. Often ones chances are better if one doesnt ask.

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If the exemption is general, and especially if it is group-based, it is less likely to be

clear, with respect to any act or omission that is at variance with the usual
requirement or expectation, whether the agent acted permissibly. He may therefore
need to defend his conduct, and since he cannot invoke an explicit, specific
exemptionwhich would establish that he acted permissiblyhis defense will
invoke a general exemption. That yields, if things go his way, either a full or a partial
excuse.
With some exemptions it may not be clear even to the exempter (even a very
analytic, subtle exempter) whether the person shes exempting is (partially) excused
or instead is, thanks to the exemption, acting permissibly (or very nearly so). Consider the pernicious group-based exemption expressed by the saying, Boys will be
boys, according to which it is (virtually) inevitable that boys will be mischievous, or
rowdy, or aggressive (the implication being that this is not the case for girls). A
schoolteacher who subscribes to this view is likely to hold girls to a higher standard,
and it may not be clear to her whether she thinks that certain actions are not really
wrong when done by boys but are when done by girls, or instead that actions that are
wrong no matter who does them but that fall under the general heading of wild,
rowdy, aggressive, etc. deserve a sterner reproach if girls perform them (the idea
presumably being that boys are less able than girls are to curb their aggression and
rowdiness, and are therefore less responsible for their rowdiness than girls are for
theirs).

7.3 Details aside, the following emerges from this survey of exemptions. The
structure of excuses as exemptions is somewhat different from that of other excuses,
at least as explained thus far. One gives or confers an exemption;26 people ask to be
excused (in the sense of exempted). But switching now to excuses in the other
sense, generally one does not confer excuses on others or give them excuses (apart
from giving in the sense of pointing out an excuse they might be able to offer for
their conduct). We recognize that S has a good excuse, but the excuse does not come
from us. Ill consider a possible exception to this claim in the next section, and will
also consider a way in which we perhaps do ask to be excused (where this is not
merely asking the other to acknowledge that an excusing condition applies).

8. If you forgive me, you bring it about that I am forgiven, and the same holds for
pardoning; moreover, I can only be forgiven or pardoned by someone. Excusing is
different, at least in this respect: I can have an excuse without anyone giving it to me;
I have it because excusing conditions apply. Often such locutions as you are
excused or we excuse you mean simply We recognize that excusing conditions
apply. But is it always like that? Or does excusing sometimes function more nearly
like forgiving and pardoning? I have suggested that exemptions provide a basis for
discretionary excusing, i.e., excusing that is not simply recognition that excusing
conditions apply. If I excuse someone in the sense of choosing not to be judgmental
(to go easy on him, to ignore the untoward behavior) on the grounds that he is
eccentric, an artist, a genius, or whatever, my excusing is similar to pardoning or
26
As noted, in the case of specific exemptions, although one can ask to be excused and may be
excused, the person who is excused has not an excuse, but a permission.

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forgiving in that it really does come from me: I bring it about that he is excused
(though unless I have some special authority here, only that he is excused by me).
Is there any other way to excuse someone besides recognizing that he has an
excuse (or that excusing conditions apply), or exempting him from a requirement or
expectation? I think there is.27 We sometimes decide not to hold a misdeed against
someonenot to blame himnot because we recognize that excusing conditions
apply (not because the standard is too high, for instance, or because of a disability or
because he is a child), but rather in a way that is really quite discretionary. The basis
could be a sort of humility: we know that we sometimes do the same thing, or
something similar in moral magnitude (and in the effort or sacrifice that compliance
with the relevant norm typically entails). Or we might have the sense that there is a
kind of reserve of credit to which people are entitledor at least people whom we
see as basically good people, and who themselves are generous in their views of
others conduct, slow to take offense or to be judgmental. We think we should give
them a break or give them some slack, rather than hold against them every misdeed.
The only hesitation I have in counting this as another way of excusing someone is
that it is so similar to exempting. It is different from specific exempting in that such
exempting can be done only by people who stand in certain relations to oneparent
to child, department head to others in the departmentwhereas excusing that
resembles exempting in the way I have been describing can be done by anyone who
might otherwise have blamed the person for a particular misdeed. It is very similar to
general exempting as I described it, but differs in that exempting requires a special
basis, something which would apply to some people but not to others. The form of
excusing Im contemplating could be based on certain features of the personsthat
they are themselves basically decent, and are not terribly judgmentalbut need not
be.
If we do count this as another way of excusing, it provides an exception to some
in general claims I put forward towards the end of Sect. 5, for it shows that excusing
leaves room for more discretion than I indicated. It also calls for revisiting my claim
that we do not generally request excuses (apart from excuses in the sense of
exemptions). Perhaps Give me a break is (when not a request to be exempted) a
request to be treated with leniency, i.e., an appeal that could be based on features
special to the case but neednt be, and might be based on nothing more than that
reserve of credit noted above. The same is true of third person statements: Give her
a break or Cut her some slack.28

9. In Sects. 6 and 7, I enumerated some types of excuses, or situations where excuses

are put forward, that seem not to be covered by Austins account. His account
overlooks excuses that are not reactions to anothers accusation (or implied accusation) of misconduct. Limiting myself now to those that are (or can be) such
reactions, I want to ask whether there is anything missing in Austins account of such
excuses.
27
I owe this thought to Dennis Klimchuk, though I am not sure whether I have captured his idea, or
modified it in a way that he would not endorse.
28
It might be claimed that Please excuse me and I hope youll excuse me are also requests to be
excused. I am reluctant to so classify them; they are polite utterances, and the fact that one could just
as easily say (while, e.g., getting up from the dinner table to go to the restroom) I am going to excuse
myself suggests that such polite utterances are not best understood as requests to be excused.

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First, something mentioned earlier also applies here: even when we are reacting to
anothers accusation, our aim in offering an excuse need not be to defend our
conduct. Our focus may be on what (we suspect) it is thought to show about our
character or our attitude towards the other person. But lets look now for other
excuses or excusing activities not covered by his account.
Austins characterization of excusing as claiming that it is not quite fair or correct
to say that I did it very clearly covers excuses of the following sort: It isnt my fault;
you were the one who was supposed to.... It also covers It was an accident, and
assertions that claim not only that it was an accident, but also that that I did not act
negligently: for example, Im so sorry that my car hit yours; I dont know what
happened; I had the brakes checked just last week and was told they are fine, and yet
they failed just now. His account also covers the excuse of I didnt mean to where
the idea is that although I did mean to do x, I didnt realize it would cause y. But it
does not cover some others: for instance, You are holding me to too high a standard;
Im only 11. Nor, relatedly, does it cover a very standard form of excuse: disabilitybased excuses. We might say that someone should not be held responsible for what he
said because, given his autism, he didnt realize how upsetting his remark would be.
Austins account would cover an excuse offered to show that he did not seek to hurt
someone (covered by it isnt fair to say I did it) but not an excuse offered to show
that he should not be blamed for the recklessness and insensitivity of the remark. It is
too much to ask of me is an important basis for an excuse. In criminal law, this is
captured in two ways: it is too much to ask of anyone in this situation (as in the
defense of duress); and it is too much to ask of me, given my particular disability.
Another plea to be excusedif that is what it isthat his account does not cover
is Give me a break, where one does not put forward a defense but asks, in effect, to
be given some slack, to be treated generously or mercifully rather than judgmentally.

10. A book prominently displayed in an airport bookstore has a title that caught
my eye: Hes Just Not That into You: the No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys
(Behrendt & Tuccillo, 2004). What kind of excuse or excusing activity is implied by
No-Excuses? Is it of a type covered by Austins account? I withstood the books
repellence and investigated. The book draws attention to a tendency of many a
woman (as the authors see it) to explain away evidence that a man in whom she
has a romantic interest is in fact not interested in her. She makes excuses for (e.g.)
his failure to phone her, or his never having time to spend more than a few hours
with her. Now, conceived in one familiar way, making excuses for others is simply
defending them against an accusationnothing newsworthy, and nothing that
Austins account doesnt cover. But Hes Just Not That into You draws attention to
another way we sometimes speak of making excuses for others: we may make
excuses for another not so much to defend him as to (re)interpret his behavior in a
way that is more in keeping with our hopes and fantasies. Here, making excuses
means seeking to explain someones conduct in a way that permits us to hold onto
a belief about him that we are loathe to call into question, yet see there is reason
to doubt. Making excuses (in this sense) is thus an exercise in self-deception. This
notion of making excuses for someone meshes well (apart from its pejorative
connotation) with something I said earlier about offering excuses for myself to
another person: one aim is to show that my conduct does not mean what you might
think it means. Likewise, making excuses for another might be an attempt to

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convince myself (or a third party) that his or her conduct does not really mean
what I fear it means.
Making excuses carries a pejorative connotation; but the activity of trying to
convince oneself or a third party that someones conduct doesnt really mean what
we fear it means need not involve any dishonesty or be otherwise objectionable. It
may reflect appropriate charity (maybe, though not necessarily, in light of a
discovery of some new fact about the person). Offering excuses is the (mostly)
non-pejorative equivalent to making excuses, carrying no connotation that selfdeception or (other) dishonesty is involved (though at the same time not implying an
absence of dishonesty, much less of a mistake).
When and why do we offer excuses for others? Mainly for the reasons indicated
above: we defend someone against an accusation (and if this annoys our interlocutor,
she may say, Stop making excuses for him); we may also, detecting the third partys
disapproval, try to lead her to see the other persons conduct in an entirely different
way. In the latter instance, we may, in citing an excusing condition, bring her to see
his conduct not merely as excusable, but as having an entirely different, unobjectionable meaning from that which she initially saw in it. Aspects of his conduct which
before seemed neutral may now seem heroic; aspects that she found objectionable
no longer seem so. A student seems to me to be blowing off my course until I learn
that he suffers from severe depression. His conductsitting in the corner, wearing
his overcoat throughout the seventy-five minute class, putting up his arm as if to
barricade himself from the rest of ushad come across as hostile, as announcing I
dont want to be here and am not going to be engaged. But now I see heroismmost days he manages to come to class! Citing an excusing condition can thus
not only serve to convince us that someone should not be held responsible for the
conduct in question; it can lead us to interpret the conduct completely differently.

11. Before I conclude, Id like to touch on a topic hinted at by my title. Why is it that
excuses can beand often areso annoying?
The practice of excusing others has obvious benefits. It is unfair to hold people to
standards that are too high; it is reassuring to be excused when one tried hard but
failed. Insofar as the practice of excusing others is a good one, and insofar as
excusing conditions sometimes need to be pointed out to others, offering excuses
should generally be a good thing, too. If the practices of excusingincluding offering
excusesare generally salutary, why can it be so annoying when people offer them?
Excuses become annoying mainlybut not onlywhen the person offering excuses for herself does so too often. It is worth spelling out why this is so annoying. If I
am always five minutes late to pick my son up from school, and always have some
excusethe traffic was worse than usual; I couldnt find my keys; I was intercepted
by a garrulous colleague; I was so immersed in my work that I lost track of the
timehe is likely to sense that I am trying to put the blame on circumstances when I
should be accepting responsibility, that I am not making any effort to improve, and
that I am placing more importance on my activities and needs than on his. One such
excuse may not be judged a flimsy excuse, but after a whileafter the behavior and
the excuses are repeated a few timesthe excuses, as we say, wear thin. Even more
annoying is one particular way of avoiding responsibility: blaming it on someone
else.

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A similar explanation can be given for why it is so annoying to have someone

repeatedly offer excuses for another person. In repeatedly making excuses for another I avoid treating him as someone who should own up to what he has done. This
may have the effect (if he is aware that I am making excuses for him, or if my doing
so leads others to treat him likewise) of helping him avoid taking responsibility for
his actions and altering his bad behavior. There is a further way in which it might be
annoying: he may rightly resent my offering excuses for his behavior, finding this
meddlesome and perhaps condescending, as well.
If Sect. 8 is not misguided, and one can request to be excused (and not merely
exempted), we can pinpoint another reason why excuses become annoying: too
frequent requests for leniencyto be given a breakexhibit a kind of greed. One
is expecting too much from that reserve of good will, and taking advantage of the
others generosity.
The offering of excuses can also be annoying for another reason. In offering
excuses, people sometimes over-dramatize certain conditions, treating them as
excusing conditions when it is not at all clear that they should exculpate, or that they
should exculpate as fully as the speaker seems to think. There is very likely selfindulgence involved as well: treating something as an excusing condition for oneself
but not (or not to the same extent) for others. (This feature applies to justifications
as well as to excuses.)
Excuses are also annoying when the person goes on too long, as if he is determined to convince you. You may suspect willful dishonesty (or self-deception), but
even apart from that, his determination to convince you that he is not blameworthy
is itself annoying, in part because a practice so tied to civility, and couched in those
terms, is now employed to badger you into altering your view.
Excuses offered by someone who clearly believes himself justified are also
sometimes aggravating, but for slightly different reasons. There is something
patronizing about always offering an excuse when a justification would be more in
order (if any defense is to be given), or when one can see that the speaker believes
herself justified (whether or not one agrees that she is). The same is true if the
speaker goes on too long about how much she would have liked to attend your party,
etc. It may be irksome to have her act as if you care that much about her attendance,
or worse, as if you are so easily offended that she has to work on you to guard
against your becoming upset with her.
As noted, some of the reasons why excuses grate on our nerves apply also to the
offer of a justification. That might suggest that what is annoying is simply the attempt
to defend ones conduct. I doubt that is all there is to it. The word excuse carries a
negative connotation that justification seems not to have. We say Excuses, excuses, but not Justifications, justifications, and we say Thats just an excuse but
not Thats just a justification. Admittedly, excuse has a broader sense as well as
the narrower ones that I have focused on in this paper; excuses is sometimes used
loosely to cover all defenses.29 So Excuses, excuses could be an expression of
exasperation with all attempts to defend oneself, and not only with excuses (narrowly conceived). I dont think the same can be said of Thats just an excuse,
however; it does not mean That is just an attempt to defend yourself. At any rate, I
will proceed on the hunch that excuses have a bad press beyond any that (attempted)
justifications have.
29

I thank Antony Duff for pointing this out to me.

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If there is something especially annoying about excuses, what is it? Part of the
idea is obvious: offering a justification for what one did does not involve any denial
of responsibility, any claim to the effect, It wasnt me, it was him; or I couldnt help
it, implying It is unfair to hold me responsible. But lets look at expressions such as
Thats just an excuse to see if we can glean anything further about excuses from
them.
Just what is meant by Thats just an excuse? A first guess might be that it means
That is not a justification; it is only an excuse. But the odd thing is that it is really
saying it is not an excuse (either)not, that is, a good excuse, an excuse that
exculpates. When I say That is just an excuse I am not acknowledging that excusing
conditions apply. On the contrary, I am saying that you are trying (but without
success) to avoid doing something or to get yourself off the hook for something. I
also insinuate that there is some dishonesty: you are pretending that p (e.g., doing x
wouldyou thoughtbe good for me) was the reason why you did x, but it was not
your reason at all.
This is one common meaning of Thats just an excuse: it is not the real reason.
There is something fabricated about it (though the agent may be self-deceived rather
than deliberately dishonest). Another (overlapping) meaning has been covered already: Youre just trying to avoid accepting responsibility. The insinuation is that
whether or not what you assert is true, you should quit seeking refuge in excuses and
accept responsibility. Another meaning of Thats just an excuse is that it is not a
good reason, sincere though it may be. This seems to be the notion of excuse at
work in a billboard slogan on the expressways in New York: Buckle Up, NY! No
Excuses. The idea is that there are no good reasons not to wear your seat belt;
instead of coming up with reasons not to wear one, we should just buckle up. An
excuse here need not be a reason that is not your real reason. You might say you find
it uncomfortable, you hate feeling confined, and that might well be true, and really
be your reason for not wearing a seat belt. But it is not an adequate reasonnot a
reason weighty enough to take seriously.
It is noteworthy that the word excuse does not always have a negative
connotation. This reflects the fact that most of us approveor at least do not
disapproveof the practice of offering an excuse in certain situations; for example,
when invited repeatedly to get together with someone we really do not like. In some
circumstances it is fine just to give an excuse; in other situations it is dishonest, and
perhaps insulting. (We can imagine someone feeling insulted that her friend would
not decline an invitation openly, saying that she did not feel sociable and just wanted
a quiet evening at home, but instead offered an excuse.)

12. I will not attempt in this paper to sketch the implications of this survey of excuses
for defenses in criminal law. But to guard against misunderstanding, I would like, in
closing, to note one way in which excuses as Ive been discussing them do not map
onto excuses in criminal law. Some of what we classify as an excuse outside of the
context of criminal lawI didnt know; I didnt mean toin criminal law does not
count as an excuse because it is not, strictly speaking, a true defense;30 I didnt
know denies the mens rea of knowledge or purpose. The same goes for It was an
accident. I did it while (involuntarily) hypnotized is likewise a failure of proof
30

See n. 6, supra.

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defense rather than a true defense, for the claim is that the defendant did not commit
a voluntary act, and thus that the actus reus requirement was not met.
I mention this to clarify that when I say that excuse and justification should
function in law roughly as they do in everyday life, I do not mean that whatever is an
excuse in everyday life should be an excuse in law. This is so at least for the reason
just indicated: some of what we classify as an excuse in everyday life will help get one
off, but not by counting as a true defense. This need not be the only reason, however;
since some moral wrongs are not (and should not be) legal wrongs, we should not
assume that whatever excuses in an extra-legal context should in one way or another
get one off the hook vis-a`-vis the criminal law.
One thing is clear: the classification of excuses that I sketched in my opening
section is too narrow to cover all excuses. Whether it adequately covers excuses in
criminal law is open to debate, a debate that I expect my commentators, Antony
Duff and Jeremy Horder, will pursue.
Acknowledgements For both their challenging comments and their helpful suggestions, I am
grateful to audiences at Tulane University, at a conference on moral psychology at the University of
Texas at Austin, at Texas Tech University, the University of Western Ontario, the University of
Toronto, a conference at the University of Minnesota honoring Thomas E. Hill, Jr., and the British
Academy Conference on Philosophical Analysis and the Criminal Law. Special thanks are due to
Jeremy Horder and Antony Duff, who presented comments at the British Academy conference. I
would also like to thank Justin M. Brown, Joshua Dressler, Jeffrie Murphy, and Kevin Toh for their
helpful comments on an early draft of this paper, and Antony Duff for his suggestions for final
revisions.

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