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The Assumption of Risk Argument*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 January 2009

Leo Katz
Leo Katz
Affiliation:
The Book of Judges
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Extract

You buy a lottery ticket and you lose. You are sorry, but you wouldn't dream of complaining. Why then do you feel entitled to complain in the following sorts of cases?

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Philosophy and Policy , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , Spring 1990 , pp. 138 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © Social Philosophy and Policy Foundation 1990

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References

1 Holmes v. Carey, 234 F.Supp. 23, 24 (N.D. Ga. 1964).

2 See, for instance, Manne, Henry G., Insider Trading and the Stock Market (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1966)Google Scholar; Carlton, Dennis and Fischel, Daniel, “The Regulation of Insider Trading,” Stanford Law Review, vol. 35, p. 857 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Scott, Kenneth E., “Insider Trading Rule 10b-5, Disclosure and Corporate Privacy,” Journal of Legal Studies, vol. 9, p. 801 (1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Raz, Joseph, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 86.Google Scholar

4 For an intriguing presentation of such arguments, see Kelman, Mark, “Interpretive Construction in the Substantive Criminal Law,” Stanford Law Review, vol. 33, p. 591 (1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar I make similarly skeptical arguments about the assumption of risk in Bad Acts and Guilty Minds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 43.

5 Restatement of Torts, 2d, Section 496E, Illustration 5.

6 Restatement of Torts, 2d, Section 496E.

7 Michelman, Frank I., “Property, Utility, and Fairness: Comments on the Ethical Foundations of ‘Just Compensation Law,’” Harvard Law Review, vol. 80, pp. 1165, 1238 (1967).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 ibid.

9 Richard Epstein makes an equivalent observation in his discussion of Michelman, hypothetical in his book Takings (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 154.Google Scholar

10 Coleman, Jules L., Markets, Morals, and the Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 357, n. 41.Google Scholar

11 Coase, Ronald H., “The Problem of Social Cost,” Journal of Law and Economics, vol. 3, p. 1 (1960).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 R. v. Speck, 2 All ER 859 (Court of Appeal, 1977).

13 See also Bad Acts and Guilty Minds, ch. 5.

14 Model Penal Code, section 2.03. H.L.A. Hart and Honoré, A.M., Causation in the Law (2nd ed. 1985).Google Scholar

15 Bad Acts and Guilty Minds, ch. 4.

16 Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pt. IV.Google Scholar

17 Reasons and Persons, p. 367.

18 Although I first came by the idea of incommensurability by following up on some ideas of Goodman, Nelson, The Structure of Appearance (Dordrecht: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 3rd ed. 1977), chapters IX and XCrossRefGoogle Scholar , in fact incommensurability receives a very explicit and deep discussion in Raz, The Morality of Freedom, ch. 13, and Griffin, James, Well-Being: Its Meaning, Measurement, and Moral Importance (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), ch. VCrossRefGoogle Scholar, albeit along somewhat different lines than I give it here.

19 The problem of unconstitutional conditions gets a detailed discussion (from a different point of view, one not incompatible with the more general points made here) in Epstein, Richard A., “Unconstitutional Conditions,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 102, p. 5 (1989)Google Scholar, and Sullivan, Kathleen, “Unconstitutional Conditions,” Harvard Law Review, vol. 102, p. 1415 (1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Moore, Michael, “A Natural Law Theory of Interpretation,” University of Southern California Law Review, vol. 58, pp. 279, 297 (1985).Google Scholar

21 My discussion here closely parallels and greatly draws on Lewis, David K., “A Problem about Permission,” in Essays in Honor of Jaakko Hintikka, Saarinen, E., Hilpinen, R., Niiniluoto, I., and Hintikka, M. Provence, eds. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1979), pp. 163–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a discussion of other, closely related problems, see also Gardenfors, Peter, Knowledge in Flux: Modeling the Dynamics of Epistemic States (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988), pp. 99–103.Google Scholar

22 Lewis, David K., Counterfactuals (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), p. 10.Google Scholar

23 Bandler, Richard and Grinder, John, ReFraming: Neuro-Linguistic Programming and the Transformation of Meaning (Moab: Real People Press, 1982), p. 1.Google Scholar

24 White, Michelle, “Contract Breach and Contract Discharge Due to Impossibility: A Unified Theory,” Journal of Legal Studies, vol. XVII, p. 353 (1988).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Counterfactuals, p. 1.

26 For a more general examination of the arguments for and against plea-bargaining, see Alschuler, Albert W., “The Changing Plea-Bargaining Debate,” University of California Law Review, vol. 69, p. 652 (1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27 Second thoughts about settlements (and second thoughts about second thoughts) are the subject of Coleman, Jules R. and Silver, Charles, “Justice in Settlements,” Social Philosophy & Policy, vol. 4, p. 103 (1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as well as Fiss, Owen M., “Against Settlement,” Yale Law Journal, vol. 93, p. 1073 (1984).CrossRefGoogle ScholarEasterbrook, Frank takes issue with both pieces in “Justice and Contract in Consent Judgments,” University of Chicago Legal Forum, vol. 1987, p. 19.Google Scholar

28 Reasons and Persons, pt. I.

29 For a sampling of some pieces having bearing on this, see Lewis, David, “The Punishment That Leaves Something to Chance,” Philosophy and Public Affairs (Winter 1989), p. 53Google Scholar; Schulhofer, Stephen J., “Harm and Punishment: A Critique of Emphasis on the Results of Conduct in the Criminal Law,” University of Pennsylvania Law Review, vol. 128, p. 1497 (1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nagel, Thomas, “Moral Luck,” Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp. 24–38Google Scholar; Williams, Bernard, “Moral Luck,” Moral Luck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 204–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar