FOREWARD - Why Philosophy Matters to Tort Law

The collection of essays in this book provides an expansive philosophic view of tort law issues by many of the scholars who have helped develop the discipline in its recent emergence from the mists of academic obscurity to its present position as a neo-quasi-discipline of its own. The philosophy of tort law in some ways is very old. As revealed in several of the essays here, philosophical examination of tort law problems is conventionally traced to Aristotle’s discussion of corrective justice in Nicomachean Ethics written some 2,500 years ago. Then, in 1982 and 1983, a critical mass developed when a number of scholars, including Jules Coleman, Ernest Weinrib, and George Fletcher, offered a variety of diverse views on tort law and philosophy in law and philosophy. This was an important event in the evolution of tort