When should we make use of the criminal law? Crimes, Harms, and Wrongs offers a philosophical analysis of the nature and ethical limits of criminalisation. The authors explore the scope of harm-based prohibitions, proscriptions of offensive behaviour, and 'paternalistic' prohibitions aimed at preventing self-harm, developing guiding principles for these various grounds of state prohibition. Both authors have written extensively in the field. They have produced an integrated, accessible, philosophically-sophisticated account that will be of great interest to legal academics, philosophers, and advanced students alike.

A P Simester is Professor of Law and Provost's Chair at the National University of Singapore.
Andreas von Hirsch is Honorary Professor at the Law Faculty, Goethe-University Frankfurt, and Emeritus Honorary Professor of Penal Theory and Penal Law at the University of Cambridge.

Part I: Criminalisation and Wrongdoing
1. The Nature of Criminalisation
2. Wrongfulness and Reasons
Part II: Harm
3. Crossing the Harm Threshold
4. Remote Harms: the Need for an Extended Harm Principle
5. On the Imputation of Remote Harms
Part III: Offence
6. Rethinking the Offence Principle
7. The Distinctiveness of the Offence Principle
8. Mediating Principles for Offensive Conduct
Part IV: Paternalism
9. Reflections on Paternalistic Prohibitions
10. Some Varieties of Indirect Paternalism
Part V: Drawing Back from Criminal Law
11. Mediating Considerations and Constraints
12. Two-step Criminalisation