Wang, Yubo; (2024) Rationality and a New Interpretivist Conception of the Purpose of Tort Law. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

Text Yubo Wang_16022048_PhD Thesis Final.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 January 2030. Download (2MB)

Abstract

This thesis investigates the methodological challenges theories face in understanding the nature of tort law. There are three aims of this thesis. First, it aims to identify a two-horned dilemma in the current theorising about the nature of tort law. If a theory uses the descriptive approach, seeking to describe tort law doctrines and practices by hypothesising a purpose of tort law, it will encounter the problem of arbitrariness, the first horn of the dilemma. Tort law practice involves many participants with different purposes, making it unlikely that one purpose can describe all the doctrines and practices; a descriptive theory, thus, has to discriminate between doctrines and practices, but it lacks resources to favour one discrimination rather than the other, rendering the discrimination arbitrary. On the other hand, if a theory uses the justificatory interpretive approach that aims to both describe and justify tort law doctrines and practices, even though justificatory considerations can make the discrimination nonarbitrary, it will encounter the second horn of the dilemma, namely the problem of proportionality. We do not know how much a theory should describe and how much it should justify in order to be counted as a successful theory. Second, based on the resources in philosophy of psychology, the thesis aims to propose a new psychological interpretive approach to find a way out of the identified dilemma. This new approach offers considerations of rationality that can both discriminate between the data and have a principled say on the distribution between description and justification. Finally, the thesis aims to show that the psychological interpretive approach, with an appropriate conception of rationality, can help adjudicate between different theories about the nature of tort law.

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