Purely Formal Wrongs
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Description
This chapter cautions against the moral grounding of private rights and duties and, in turn, private law's response to wrongs. The argument is framed as a rebuke to those who suppose that private law must be interpreted from an internal, rather than instrumental, point of view. According to this chapter, interpretive theorists assume that the deontic structure of private law implies deontological moral grounding. But it argues that there is no good reason to think this, and, indeed, there are plenty of reasons to think otherwise. Private law may be formally deontic but nevertheless have instrumental moral justification. The interesting and difficult question is what to make, normatively, of the deontic structure of private law. Against the view that civil wrongs are moral wrongs, this chapter asserts that they are purely formal.
Source Publication
Civil Wrongs and Justice in Private Law
Source Editors/Authors
Paul B. Miller, John Oberdiek
Publication Date
2020
Recommended Citation
Murphy, Liam B., "Purely Formal Wrongs" (2020). Faculty Chapters. 1977.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1977
