Arthur Ripstein, Private Wrongs, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016, 313 pp, hb $49.95. In The Concept of Law (Oxford: OUP, 1963) HLA Hart drew attention to the ‘diverse ways in which the law is used to control, to guide, and to plan life out of court’ (ibid, 39). Where legal realists like Holmes saw a moralistic facade, Hart saw in private law’s use of the language of rights, obligations and powers a clue about the nature of law as rule-governed activity. Those who see law as nothing more than an economy of incentives and disincentives designed to goad citizens into conformity offer a theory of law that is distorted and inadequate. Hart’s insights do not seem to have had any immediate effect on private law scholarship, at least in North America. For much of the twentieth century, the Holmesian view of private law was ascendant. Over the past several decades, however, beginning with Jules Coleman’s Risks and Wrongs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992) and Ernest Weinrib’s Idea of Private Law (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), a number of authors have sought to account for private law doctrine – they have focused principally on tort law – on its own terms. Arthur Ripstein’s Private Wrongs is a worthy contribution in this tradition … (more)
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Robert Mullins, ‘Review: Ripstein, Arthur, Private Wrongs’, Modern Law Review. First published: 17 March 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12526.
First posted 2020-03-17 19:14:45
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