A fundamental task of criminal law is to determine whether an act constitutes a crime. In this assessment, it is essential to distinguish between permissible and impermissible acts. The admissibility of an act may follow from the existence of an express statutory rule setting out the conditions for exemption from liability. But an act may be permissible in the absence of an express statutory basis on the basis of a doctrine of social adequacy. Despite the importance of social adequacy, legal research in this area is extremely limited. The need for a coherent and in-depth legal research must be described as very great. The project aims to analyze social adequacy partly from a practical perspective with a focus on investigating issues of identification, systematization, delimitation and scope, and partly from a legal philosophy perspective with an emphasis on investigating issues of a more legal ideological and legal policy nature. The main purpose of the project is to link legal doctrine, theory and legal policy in a way that can lead to insights and knowledge for legal practitioners and legislators, but also be important for both the internal legal science debate and the general debate on the need and importance of a doctrine of social adequacy.