Reluctant Pluralist: Moore on Negligence

Abstract

Michael Moore has addressed the meaning and desirability of legal liability for negligence on several occasions. His early writings treat negligence as a consequentialist concept and as an appropriate basis for tort but not criminal liability. But in more recent writings, he is more pluralistic, recognizing that nonconsequentialist considerations play a proper role in tort negligence judgments, and tentatively endorsing negligence liability in criminal law as well. The evolution in his views is welcome. At the same time, neither Moore nor other scholars have yet provided a satisfactory account of this protean legal and moral concept. More attention should be paid to the questions whether negligence is a type of wrongdoing, a type of culpability, or both; and whether negligence differs from recklessness in kind or only in degree.

Keywords: negligence/negligent, wrongdoing, culpability/culpable, inadvertence/inadvertent, fault, recklessness/reckless