Essence of Morality in Tort Law

The law of private wrongs, particularly common law torts, fails to map onto our moral reality, according to the established orthodoxy. Skeptics concerning the moral basis of tort law have been particularly intrigued by four objections: They claim to throw doubt on the duty of care element's moral appeal; they attack the objective standard of care's seeming inequity; they criticize the morally arbitrary aspects of factual causation and injury; and they complain about the proximate cause element's unnecessary expansion of responsibility. The author will attempt to demonstrate that the normative structure of tort law may be rebuilt to reflect, to a large extent, our reasoned judgments moral values are concerned. The paper give new evidence in support of the idea that tort law enshrines certain interpersonal standards, such as responsibility norms. To begin, the author has used current responsibility theory research to better explain the role of ethically relevant varieties of institutional responsibility in tort law.