Joel Feinberg's four volume work The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law can, I believe, be accurately characterized as a normative treatise on what criminal law theorists call the “special part” of the criminal law. The “general part” deals with the basic elements of all criminal offenses—whatever is prohibited. Thus general part theorists analyze the notions of actus reus and mens rea, the conditions that negate voluntariness in acting, the distinction between acts and omissions, the nature of causation, joint participation in crime such as complicity and conspiracy, and the various defenses labeled justifications and excuses. Feinberg has little to say about these matters. His concern is with what conduct may be forbidden and punished—the specific substance rather than the general form of the criminal law.