The Negligence Standard: Political Not Metaphysical
This chapter considers the question of why the law might sometimes assign strict responsibilities and sometimes negligence-limited responsibilities. It argues that the explanation is political, not metaphysical. They relate to the desirability or appeal or merit or attractiveness of the arrangements whereby some people have responsibility for some things, and others have responsibility for others. They point to the fairness, the efficiency, or more generally the reasonableness, of responsibilities being carved up in that way, or in some other way. They do not relate to the tragedy of the human condition or the impossibility of our escape from our rational nature. They do not belong to the metaphysics of basic responsibility. They belong instead to the politics of assignable responsibility.