New Views on Characteristics of Harmful Behavior

Abstract

There have been different opinions on the characteristics of harmful behavior among which the common view thinks that harmful behavior has three characteristics: Corporeality; Intentionality; Harmfulness. When judging these views, we need to treat harmful behavior as basic, core, boundary, combination element in the system of constitutive elements of crime. As the basic element, harmful behavior should explain various kinds of crimes. The reasoning and argument should be comprehensive. However, intentionality has excluded actio libera in causa and vergelichkeitsdelikt outside of harmful behavior so it cannot be recognized as characteristic of harmful behavior. As the core element, harmful behavior must reflect the nature and legal characteristics of crime which indicates that harmfulness and illegality must be the characteristics of harmful behavior. As the boundary element, harmful behavior exclude pure mental activities via corporeality out of crime, therefore, corporeality should of course be the characteristic of harmful behavior.

Key words: Harmful Behavior; Corporeality; Intentionality; Harmfulness; Illegality