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Chapter 7 - The Boundaries of Negligence

from Part II - Agency, Reasons and Inadvertence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2021

Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco
Affiliation:
University of Surrey
George Pavlakos
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
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Summary

This chapter defends three ideas. (1) That negligence is essentially a conative failure to exercise due care. The negligent agent doesn’t care enough about a relevant moral aim. (2) Resultantly, the potential cognitive failures of agents, whether they foresee or fail to foresee certain risks of harm, are only incidentally relevant to their negligence. In this way, (3) negligence is conceptually contiguous with recklessness. The hallmark of both reckless and negligence conduct is an insufficient regard for the legitimate interests of others, and what separates them is better understood in terms of conative differences in how each agent disregards those interests, rather than cognitive differences in advertence. I examine these claims in the context of a puzzle regarding negligence and foresight, and consider the implications of my conclusions for negligence culpability in morality and the traditional hierarchy of mens rea in the law.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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