Patrick Devlin, The Enforcement of Morals (1965)

This chapter revisits Patrick Devlin’s famous text The Enforcement of Morals and the ensuing public debate between Devlin and H.L.A. Hart about whether criminal law should have a role in enforcing morality as such. The chapter summarises the work, and sets it in the context of the social and intellectual world in which it was written and received. The chapter then evaluates the significance and legacy of the debate for contemporary scholarship and policy debates, and in particular for the recent reinvigoration of the legal moralist tradition. It also poses the question of how its future place in the criminal law canon should be shaped by recent disclosures about Devlin’s own conduct.