The Law of Negligence, Blameworthy Action and the Relationality Thesis: A Dilemma for Goldberg and Zipursky’s Civil Recourse Theory of Tort Law

Abstract

In this paper, I discuss Goldberg and Zipursky’s Recognizing Wrongs and argue that there is a tension between their philosophy of action as applied to the law of negligence and the idea that the directive-based relationality thesis is central and, therefore, the action and conduct of the defendant should not be part of the core explanation of the tort of negligence.