We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Statistical Proof of Specific Causation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2014
The law embodies the story of a nation’s development through many centuries…. In order to know what it is, we must know what it has been, and what it tends to become. We must alternately consult history and existing theories of legislation. But the most difficult labor will be to understand the combination of the two into new products at every stage. The substance of the law at any given time pretty nearly corresponds, so far as it goes, to what is then understood to be convenient; but its form and machinery, and the degree to which it is able to work out desired results, depend very much upon its past.
–Oliver Wendell Holmes.A PRAGMATIST PREAMBLE: HOW LEGAL CONCEPTS EVOLVE
This paper may not be what you were expecting; at least, if you were anticipating that I would come up with a new analysis of the concept of causation that I could apply in legal contexts, or even with a new critique of Hart and Honoré’s ideas, or a new defense of them, I shall have to disappoint you. Why so?–not because I have tried, but failed, to contribute something to this analytic genre of legal philosophy; rather, because I’m inclined to think it’s more productive to tackle questions about causation, risk, and responsibility in the law in a somewhat different way, better suited to highlighting two facts that seem, at least where the common law is concerned, undeniable: first, that legal concepts generally diverge, in greater or lesser degree, from the everyday concepts in which they have their roots; and second, as Holmes emphasized, that legal concepts aren’t fixed and static, but gradually shift and evolve as social values and priorities change, as new discoveries are made, and as new technology is introduced.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
