Dr. iur. Dr. phil. Philipp-Alexander Hirsch

Research Group Leader

Criminal Law
Independent Research Group Criminal Law Theory
+49 761 7081-272

p.hirsch@csl.mpg.de

Publication References

Philipp-Alexander Hirsch is a legal scholar and philosopher. He has been Leader of an Independent Research Group on criminal-law theory at the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg since 2022, having studied and obtained doctorates in law and philosophy before taking up this role. He has studied at the University of Göttingen, the University of Vienna, and the University of Toronto. In addition, he is complet­ing his habilitation in criminal law at the University of Göttingen, where he is also a lecturer in the Department of Philos­o­phy. His research focuses on criminal law and criminal procedure, legal philosophy and legal theory, and the history and phi­los­o­phy of criminal law in the Age of Enlightenment.

Main Focus

In his research, Philipp-Alexander Hirsch is particularly interested in the foundations of crim­i­nal law. One focus is crim­i­nal-law theory, understood as an analysis of criminal law and its doctrine that centers on the underlying normative struc­tures and principles in order to assess their coherence, justifiability , and persuasiveness. In addition, his research is con­cerned with doctrinal and methodological questions as well as the intellectual history and philosophical aspects of criminal law. Current topics of his research are:

• The status of the victim in substantive criminal law and criminal proceedings
• Theory of rights
• Questions of imputation
• Theories of criminalization
• Theories of punishment
• Development of criminal law in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
• Comparison of legal theories (especially between German and Anglo-American legal systems)

Curriculum Vitae

• Since 2022: Leader of an Independent Research Group on criminal-law theory
  Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law, Freiburg i.Br.

• 2018–2022: Research Associate and, subsequently, Assistant Professor (akademischer Rat)
  Institute of Criminal Law and Justice at the University of Göttingen (Prof. Dr. Uwe Murmann, Chair of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law)

• 2017–2020: Doctor of Laws (Doktor der Rechte)
  University of Göttingen
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Uwe Murmann
  Awarded the Appelhagen-Stifterpreis of the Faculty of Law of the University of Göttingen for the best dissertation of the year 2020

• 2015–2018: Legal clerkship (Referendariat)
  Higher Regional Court of Braunschweig with internships at, inter alia, the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection and the law firm Graf von Westphalen

• 2011–2016: Doctorate in Philosophy
  University of Göttingen
  Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Bernd Ludwig and – during a research stay – Prof. Dr. Arthur Ripstein (University of Toronto )
  Funded by a doctoral scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation

• 2006–2011: M.A., Philosophy
  University of Göttingen and University of Vienna
  Funded by a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation

• 2003–2010: Study of law (Studium der Rechtswissenschaften), First State Examination in Law
  University of Göttingen and University of Vienna
  Funded by a scholarship from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation
  Awarded second place among examinees in calendar year 2010 for performance on the First State Examination in Law of the state of Lower Saxony

Projects

• • All

Rights in Criminal Law

The aim of the project is to address the issue of rights in criminal law: Who holds and who should hold a right not to be wronged by others? And is it the violation of rights – rather than the causing of harm – that grounds a prima facie reason for criminalization? According to the standard view in criminal law, compliance with criminal-law du­ties… more

Ernst Ferdinand Klein. Philosopher, Criminal Law Scholar and Justice Reformer of the German Enlightenment

Ernst Ferdinand Klein is one of the most prominent figures of the late German Enlightenment. A philosopher, scholar of criminal law, and reformer of the judiciary, he not only played an influential role in shaping academic dis­course in these fields at the end of the 18th century. He also had a lasting impact on forming public opinion on the… more

Reasonable Punishment? The Presence of German Idealism in the Theory of Punishment

The aim of this interdisciplinary research project is to evaluate from today’s per­spective the dispute regarding whether punishment ought to be justified on retrib­u­tive or on preventive grounds – a dispute that has been on­go­ing in Ger­many since the end of the eighteenth century and whose most influential protagonists were Kant, Fichte, and… more

Relational Morality and the Criminal Law

The project will address the significance of second-personal/rela­tional concep­tions of moral­ity for criminal law and criminal proce­dure. Despite the vast im­portance that these concep­tions have gained in contemporary ethics in recent years, their possible implications for crim­i­nal law, especially in Germany, are still relatively unexplored… more

Rücksichtslosigkeit. Possibility, Potential, and Limits of a New Central Category between Intent and Negligence

In German criminal-law doctrine, deliberate high-risk behavior is strictly di­chot­o­mized as either intentional or neg­li­gent behavior. The border line runs between dolus eventualis (“conditional intent”) and bewusste Fahrlässigkeit (“conscious negligence”), although this is accompanied by problems with regard to proving intent in the trial and… more

Publications