Abstract

Inchoate crime consists of acts that are regarded as crimes despite the fact that they are only partial or incomplete in some respect. This includes acts that do not succeed in physically harming the victim or are only indirectly related to such a result. Examples include attempts (as in attempted murder that does not eventuate in the killing of anyone), conspiracy (in which case the crime has only been planned, not yet acted out) and incitement (where the inciter does not himself commit the crime he is urging others to undertake). The present paper attempts to analyze these inchoate crimes from a libertarian perspective, based on the non-aggression principle.