Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco

Negligent or inadvertent action in both law and ethics is a matter of agency. The pre-theoretical and philosophical views agree that we are responsible for things that we do intentionally, but it is less clear whether we are responsible for inadvertent or negligent actions. The law of negligence in tort law attributes responsibility for inadvertent acts, while in ethics there is deep and serious scepticism about the responsibility for negligent or inadvertent action. How can we be responsible for things that happen beyond the realm of our knowledge or control?

Positioned at the intersection of law and ethics, Responsibility for Negligence in Ethics and Law: Aspiration, Perspective and Civic Maturity responds to these fundamental questions by advancing the idea that the underpinning feature of negligent or inadvertent acts is the phenomenon of akrasia - the lack of integration of character and intelligent thinking. When we act akratically, we are acting contrary to our deliberated intention, due to an uneven development of character and thoughts about what is right, dutiful, and good. Using an Aristotelian-inspired model of deliberation, the book illustrates how legal decisions in negligence invite citizens to adopt a deliberative-aspirational perspective. This perspective encourages them to reshape, redescribe, and rethink their duties of care to meet the aspirational standard of the reasonable person. Consequently, the book argues that the purpose of negligence law is to promote values of citizen engagement and civic maturity.

Combining tort law theory, Aristotelian conceptions of deliberation, and theories of practical rationality, responsibility, and action, this book invites us to rethink private law's purpose and methodology.

Abstract
Corrective justice theorists tell us that to resort to features or characteristics alien to the internal structure of corrective justice and the law of negligence undermines the intelligibility of the phenomena, i.e., the interaction between the plaintiff and the defendant. Like friendship or love which can only be understood by reasons of love or friendship itself, the doctrinal aspects of negligence law can only be correctly understood and become intelligible within the normativity, internal logic and reasons of corrective justice, i.e., equality between persons, autonomy. Furthermore, law and juridical thinking are a matter of rights and duties. By contrast, ethical deliberation and practical reason are a matter of virtuous action, values and what is good. The first underlying presupposition will be called the “internal logic” thesis. The latter will be called the “the separation of rights and values” thesis.
I aim to debunk both theses and argue, first, that we need to grasp the values embedded in the law in our “doing” and in our engagement with the law. This does not mean that these values are external and therefore that we make the internal logic of negligence law unintelligible. I will show that from the forward-looking perspective of the citizen there is no stark separation of rights and values. When engaging in decisions judges attribute liability grounded on the plaintiff’s rights and defendant’s duties, they take the backward-looking standpoint. However, in negligence law, judges advance values that play the role of proleptic thoughts, i.e., descriptions and re-descriptions of values, in the practical reasoning of the citizens. We can understand both functions or roles because we can understand that there is no stark separation of rights/duties and values. Finally, the paper considers whether my position sheds light on the role of moral luck in negligence law.