PHIL30260 Philosophy of Law

Academic Year 2022/2023

This module will concern the philosophy of "private law". Private law involves complaints raised by one citizen against another, and irreconcilable disputes have to be formally adjudicated (as opposed to 'public law', which involves complaints raised by citizens against the state). Sometimes private law is called 'corrective justice', as opposed to 'punitive justice' or 'distributive justice'. In the legal systems of Ireland and the UK, private law traditionally comprises four areas: torts, contract, property and restitution. We will look at philosophical issues raised in all four areas.
Note: this is NOT a law module, and no background knowledge of the law is presumed (although law students are certainly welcome to attend).
(i) An example of a tort is when a doctor injures a patient through negligence. What is negligence, and what sort of failure of responsibility is at stake? How far is it intelligible to think of monetary compensation as returning the victim to the 'status quo ante'? (ii) In the area of contract, we will ask: how exactly does a past promise bind me in the present? We will look at some problems in interpreting contracts, and in determining whether a putative victim's informed consent was somehow insufficient. (iii) When it comes to property, we will ask: what exactly gives me the right to call something 'mine'? What sorts of things can be 'mine'? If something is 'mine', what can I do with it? (iv) Restitution is about returning something that was unjustly confiscated, or paying reparations if the thing cannot be returned. Often this is straightforward, but it becomes problematic with the passage of time (e.g. the original owners are now dead), and with changes to the confiscated object. One classic example concerns confiscations by Nazi German and Communist Eastern European regimes; another classic example concerns American slavery.
For a sense of the philosophical issues, students are advised to look at the following Stanford Encyclopedia entry:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tort-theories/