Includes bibliographical references and index.

Private law and the burden of repair -- Responsibility, but the right kind -- Choice and responsibility -- Protection against the burden of repair -- Avoidability -- Contracts and the social structure -- Vicarious liability.

"This book proposes that we should think about private law in terms of substantive responsibilities, i.e. to focus on justifying the practical burdens that private law requires people to bear in the context of agreements, accidents and so on. This way of thinking has three distinct advantages. First, it makes it easier to understand the claims of various accounts of private law as rival claims about the same thing, namely the burdens or duties that agents may be required to bear in the context of an agreement or an accident. Second, it allows us to use some ideas about responsibility, especially the idea that we have reason to want our responsibilities to depend on how we respond in situations of choice, as an independent measure for assessing the moral merits of those rival claims. Third, it gives us an intuitive way of thinking about the normative significance of certain considerations, such as the distributive effects of private law principles, and the effect of rational biases on how agents respond in situations of choice."--Provided by publisher.

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