This chapter offers an example of conceptual instrumentalist analysis. Being instrumentalist in nature, the analysis focuses on the degree to which one plausible doctrinal design or another best advances the underlying social policies sought to be achieved in a given area of law. Unlike classic empirical analysis, however, the social policies at play in conceptual instrumentalist analysis are not concrete practical benefits that might be furthered in the real world, like greater compensation or deterrence, but are instead more abstract preferred outcomes, like greater fairness or the presence of sufficient fault by a certain party before the imposition of legal liability. Of course, appellate court analysis of any particular legal issue might involve elements of both empirical and conceptual instrumentalist analysis.

The focus of the analysis in this chapter is the tort law requirement of causation. The account presented seeks to explain the structure of this long-standing requirement, the meaning ascribed to the distinction between actual and proximate cause, and the rationale underlying the various exceptions to the main rule that have been developed over time.