That’s the Story of My Life
That’s the Story of My Life
This chapter shifts attention from the wrong to the loss that is suffered by the person who is wronged. It considers the basis on which such losses can intelligibly be attributed to the wrongdoer. The chapter argues that the problem goes right to the heart of the theory of human action. There cannot be human action at all—or even a decision to act—if there cannot be human action that is partly constituted by the way it turns out. There is no reason to decide, never mind a reason to attempt, if there is no reason to achieve, succeed, bring about what one decided, and so on. An explanation of action, in short, depends on an explanation of the possibility of causal responsibility. The problem faced by private law, then, is not so much the problem of explaining how losses matter, as much as the problem of explaining where we should stop.
Keywords: loss, wrongdoing, theory of human action, human action, private law, causal responsibility
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