Tort Law and Social Morality

by Peter M. Gerhart

Overview

This book develops a theory of tort law that integrates deontic and consequential approaches by applying justificational analysis to identify the factors, circumstances, and values that shape tort law. Drawing on Kantian and Rawlsian philosophy, and on the insights of game theorist Ken Binmore, this book refocuses tort law on a single theory of responsibility that explains and justifies the broad range of tort doctrine and concepts. Under this theory, tort law asks people to appropriately incorporate the well-being of others into the decisions they make, explains when that duty applies, and explains the scope and limits of that duty. The theory also incorporates a theory of the evolutionary development of social values that people use, and ought to use, in meeting that duty and explains how decision-making from behind the veil of ignorance allows us to evaluate the is in light of the ought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780511848490
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/19/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	576 KB

About the Author

Professor Gerhart is a graduate of Northwestern University and the Columbia Law School. He practised law with Weil, Gotshal, and Manges before entering teaching in 1975. Before serving as Dean of the Case Western Reserve School of Law from 1986 to 1996, he was an expert in antitrust law, publishing widely in the area and serving as consultant to both the ABA Commission on the Future of Antitrust Law and the Carter Commission for the Review of Antitrust Laws and Procedures. Since 1996 he has specialized in international economic law, tort law, and legal theory.

Table of Contents

Part I. Other-Regarding Behavior: 1. Law as a social institution; 2. Social cohesion and social values: the reasonable person; Part II. The Normative Justification: 3. An integrated normative analysis; 4. Kantian duty; 5. Rawlsian consequentialism: Rawls and social cohesion; Part III. The Theory Applied: 6. Social cohesion and autonomy: the justificational boundary of duty; 7. Social cohesion and moral agency: the justification for proximate cause; 8. Social cohesion and strict liability; 9. Using another's property; 10. Product liability: social cohesion and agency relationships; 11. Customer-centered enterprise liability; 12. Social cohesion and knowledge: the intentional torts; Part IV. Lessons and Extrapolations: 13. The whole in one.