ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the morality of criminalizing the conventional wrongs. In the case of harmful conduct, it is the wrongdoing and the objective harmfulness of the acts/consequences that flow from that wrongdoing that provide the moral justification for invoking the criminal law. The harmful consequence provides the lawmaker with guidance as to why the wrong doing is a kind that should be brought within the purview of criminal law. The legislature is required to evaluate the intensity and durability of the repugnance produced, and the extent to which repugnance could be anticipated to be the general reaction to the conduct that produced it. Feinberg tries to counter the looseness of allowing any disgust taking and mere culpability to form a justification for invoking the criminal law by subjecting the offense doing to a reasonableness evaluation. The criminal law gives the government immense power over its people because of disobeying a criminally codified command that results in stigmatization and severe punishment.
