Equality, Responsibility, and the Law

Examines responsibility and luck as these issues arise in tort law, criminal law, and distributive justice.

This book examines responsibility and luck as these issues arise in tort law, criminal law, and distributive justice. The central question is: whose bad luck is a particular piece of misfortune? Arthur Ripstein argues that there is a general set of principles to be found that clarifies responsibility in those cases where luck is most obviously an issue: accidents, mistakes, emergencies, and failed attempts at crime. In revealing how the problems that arise in tort and criminal law as well as distributive justice invite structurally parallel solutions, the author also shows the deep connection between individual responsibility and social equality. This is a challenging and provocative book that will be of special interest to moral and political philosophers, legal theorists, and political scientists.

1. Equality, luck and responsibility; 2. Corrective justice and spontaneous order; 3. A fair division of risks; 4. Foresight and responsibility; 5. Punishment and the tort/crime distinction; 6. Mistakes; 7. Recklessness and attempts; 8. Beyond corrective and retributive justice? Marx and Pashukanis on the 'narrow horizons on Bourgeois right'; 9. Reciprocity and responsibility in distributive justice.

This book examines responsibility and luck as these issues arise in tort law, criminal law, and distributive justice. This is a challenging and provocative book that will be of special interest to moral and political philosophers, legal theorists, and political scientists.