Allowing for Exceptions

Reviews / Votes

Rigorously argued, erudite and persuasive. . . An immensely impressive piece of legal and philosophical scholarship. * Vincent Chiao, Law and Philosophy * Tightly argued and highly valuable...In explaining the intersection of defenses, defeaters, and exceptions in criminal law, in law generally, and for rules generally by use of the idea of the burden of proof, [Duarte] d'Almeida has not only offered a more than plausible solution to the problem he has set out to solve, and has not only done so with admirable rigor, but has also made a substantial contribution to the literature on rules more generally...Deserves to be read and absorbed by anyone interested in deontic logic, artificial intelligence, the operation of legal (and other) rules, and the characteristics of normative systems generally, whether those be the normative systems of law, of games, of etiquette, or even of morality. * Frederick Schauer, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * [A]n extraordinary achievement. The depth of research is remarkable: work on defeasibility from a number of disciplines (and from literature in numerous languages) is examined, but never does the book descend to literature review. There are interesting contributions to many topics, including burdens of proof, the concept of action and criminal law theory. The writing is crisp, the arguments clear. Although the conclusions are striking and at times controversial, their controversy is not hidden and the flaws of rival views are carefully explained. In many respects, it is a model of scholarship. It deserves to be widely read not only by philosophers of action and law, but also any lawyer who thinks seriously about defences. * Frederick Wilmot-Smith, The Law Quarterly Review *