Causation and Responsibility: An Essay in Law, Morals, and Metaphysics

by Michael S. Moore

The concept of causation is fundamental to ascribing moral and legal responsibility for events. Yet the relationship between causation and responsibility remains unclear. What precisely is the connection between the concept of causation used in attributing responsibility and the accounts of causal relations offered in the philosophy of science and metaphysics? How much of what we call causal responsibility is in truth defined by non-causal factors? Causation and Responsibility argues that much of the legal doctrine on these questions is confused and incoherent, and offers the first comprehensive attempt since Hart and Honore to clarify the philosophical background to the legal and moral debates.
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The book first sets out the place of causation in criminal and tort law and outlines the metaphysics presupposed by the legal doctrine. It then analyzes the best theoretical accounts of causation in the philosophy of science and metaphysics, and using these accounts criticizes many of the core legal concepts surrounding causation - such as intervening causation, foreseeability of harm, and complicity. It considers and rejects the radical proposals to eliminate the notion of causation from law by using risk analysis to attribute responsibility. The result of the analysis is a powerful argument for revising our understanding of the role played by causation in the attribution of legal and moral responsibility.

634 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2008

Reviews

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an incredibly hardgoing, repetitive, and unduly prolix book that needs an edit. However it is to be commended for actually applying analytic philosophy to this area.

[Kramer Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the going was glacial with my reading of this book, I (think that I) learned a lot. This was really my first extended look at legal theory, as well as my first foray into some of the metaphysics topics broached in the book, such as the nature of objects and events. This book also had interesting discussion of the metaphysics of causation, some of which I knew already, and some of which I did not. I think I benefited a lot from all of this discussion.

That said, the book needed a serious edit. There were many typos as well as misspellings of authors' names. I suspect the manuscript could have also been shortened quite considerably had it gone through some more editing. These errors and occasional problems with the expression of the text made some parts quite difficult to pay attention to and understand.

Still, overall I think it was certainly worth reading and will be a useful tool to return to when I think about these problems further. I imagine that this is also worthwhile reading for anyone interested in the normative dimensions of causation or how legal theory and causation are related.