Workshop on Adam Slavny’s new book, Wrongs, Harms and Compensation: Paying For Our Mistakes (OUP)

16th April 2024

Worcester College, Oxford

Speakers:
Adam Slavny (Warwick)
Sandy Steel (Oxford)
Kate Vredenburg (LSE)
Kritika Maheshwari (TU Delft)
Todd Karhu (KCL)
Benjamin Zipursky (Fordham)

Non-instrumentalist private law theory has been dominated by an interpretivist methodology that seeks to understand the concepts, doctrines, and structures of the law in principled terms. This has resulted in the neglect of purely normative analysis and a failure to engage systematically with the methodologies of moral and political philosophy. In his new book, Adam Slavny argues that the justification of tort law is dependent on our underlying moral corrective duties. He develops a pluralistic account of these duties, which encompasses both wrongful and non-wrongful conduct, complicating the view that torts should be regarded as a coherent set of wrongs. He also places the practice of enforcing corrective duties in a broader context, arguing that it should not be isolated or immune to critiques based on distributive justice, and that our duties are in fact consistent with institutional arrangements other than tort law, including various types of compensation schemes.

The workshop papers will engage directly with Slavny’s arguments. The book manuscript will be made available to all registered participants.

Registration is now closed. If you have registered but are unable to attend, please email [email protected] to deregister. 

All enquiries to [email protected].