Such a mechanistic conception of causality is primarily a suggestion in the legal literature because of the elusive and seemingly mysterious use of “energy” and “force” by legal theorists (Hart & Honoré 1959). Such a view is often used by jurors, but if theorists cannot explain the general nature of the relationship applied intuitively by jurors, this test tends to collapse on the more metaphysically economic (because primitivist) test of the substantial factor. In addition to these three factors (and given the caveat and the third point raised earlier to distinguish legal propositions from laws of law), there are theories about what causality means or should mean in law. Such theories have been proposed by legal theorists because they make statements about law. Such theories, despite their non-authoritative source, have played an important role in the history of thinking about the nature of causality in law. Some of these theories, to the extent that their content faithfully reflects legal principles, have even become part of the law of which they are theories (Raz 2012). Don`t be tainted by dull skepticism. In taxononomizing the seven variants of the counterfactual criterion, it was useful to show how these variations were produced in response to the perceived problems present for the first variation, the simple and unchanged counterfactual test. While there is no immediate causation test that is legally dominant (albeit purely formal) to the factual factual test of cause, it is nevertheless useful to present the various proximate cause criteria because they address problems in other criteria of immediate causation. A discussion of standard problems with each version of the tests in legal theory is therefore included, as we describe what motivates other tests. Consider this last question in light of two well-known types of legal cases. It is an age-old maxim in criminal law and tort that “you take your victim as you find her.” Standard translation: Regardless of how abnormal the victim`s susceptibility to injury may be and how unpredictable these injuries may be, a defendant is legally considered to be the cause of these injuries.
Beat the proverbial man with a thin skull, and you legally caused his death when he dies, no matter how rare his condition may be. This is difficult to reconcile with the risky damage test. An accused who intends to beat or cut does not necessarily (or even usually) intend to kill. A defendant who anticipates that his or her actions will result in the victim being beaten or excated does not necessarily (or even normally) foresee that the victim will die. An accused who negligently risks that his or her actions will result in a victim being beaten or cut is not necessarily (or even usually) negligent because he or she risked death. Most of Henry Edgerton`s oft-cited works describe his skepticism about direct causality. However, part of this shows that he was also skeptical about the factual cause requirement. He notes, for example, that symmetrically simultaneous cases of overdetermination were divided into two camps according to the causal doctrines of his time: when there were two guilty actors who set the fire (where the fires came together to form a larger fire that burned the plaintiff`s house), each actor was a cause of destruction; But if only one of the fires was of culpable origin, the other was natural or innocent of human origin, then the guilty actor was not the cause of the destruction. Using such examples, Edgerton suggested that the demand for cause is indeed (like the requirement for immediate cause) a matter of policy, a matter that depends on “our free and independent sense of justice and, perhaps, the interests of society.” 12. The intent assumed to have aphrodisiac powers to extend legally relevant causal influence to otherwise legally distant events (the common law maxim “no harm is too far if intent” is; Terry, 1914:17). The essential statement behind the risk harm test is that “legal cause” is the label lawyers should place on a guilt issue, the so-called adequacy issue. Proponents of this test emphasize that the legal cause, properly understood, is actually a doctrine of mens rea, not a doctrine of causation at all (American Law Institute, 1985).
Third, we must distinguish between legal propositions containing the concept of causality and propositions concerning the law of causality. We are concerned about the first types of proposals; These last theses are the hypotheses of theorists (like the present author) on the content of propositions that oblige jurists in their role as jurists, that is to say, of law. But it is the law itself, it is the data from which a legal concept such as causality in law must be extracted. When could distrust be used to replace skepticism? The words distrust and skepticism can be used in similar contexts, but distrust focuses on the lack of belief in the truth, reality, fairness, or trustworthiness of something or someone. Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article on skepticism I think we start with a very healthy skepticism, we don`t want to do anything that interferes in any case, which the Department of Justice might decide. The basic principle of taxonomization here is to separate tests that have no immediate causality like anything to do with actual causal relationships (the conventional view in legal theory) from tests motivated by opposing thought. We`ll start with the first type of testing, which should be called policy-based testing for immediate causes. The political tests for immediate causes are themselves judiciously divided into two camps.
Some – the policy criteria – are justified because they cover a wide range of directives, in fact as broad as the directives justifying liability in torts or criminal matters. In contrast, other tests serve only one policy: to measure the actor`s guilt in relation to the mental state he had or should have had when he acted. The second type of case involves what are often referred to as “intervention” or “replacement” causes. Suppose the accused places explosives next to a prison wall with the intention of blowing up the wall and eliminating some inmates. He predicts with practical certainty that the explosion will kill the security guard on the other side of the wall. He lights the fuse of the bomb and leaves. Randomly, the backup turns off. However, a stranger walks past the wall, sees the bomb and relights the fuse to see an explosion.
Or, lightning strikes the fuse, ignites it and ignites the bomb. If the guard on the other side of the wall is killed by the explosion, standard doctrines of intrusive causation state that the defendant did not legally cause the death of the security guard. However, this is difficult to reconcile with the result that should apparently be achieved under the risky harm test. Did the defendant not foresee the nature of the damage that had occurred? Because the question of harm at risk poses a simple token-type question – was the particular harm that occurred a case of the kind of harm that the defendant made him guilty of foresight – the test is blind to the folly of the causal pathway (Moore 2009a: chap. 10). The irrelevance of causality to provide effective incentives has led economists to struggle to understand the causal requirement of criminal law and tort rules. Since no metaphysical reading of “cause” is proportional to the goal of efficiency, a certain political calculation is given as the legal meaning of “cause.” Such a political calculation usually produces a probabilistic interpretation of the “cause”, so that any activity that increases the conditional probability of injury occurring is considered to have “caused” that damage (Calabresi 1975). For any theory that attempts to use the law to encourage effective behavior in a world of high transaction costs, this probabilistic interpretation seems to be exactly what is required. To criticize such a probabilistic interpretation of the legal cause on the grounds that probability is a metaphysical misrepresentation of what causality is (Wright 1985a, 1987) would therefore be incidental – as long as one adheres to economists` utilitarian views on the proper functioning of the concept of causality in law.
While it is possible to argue that causality in law has nothing to do with causality in science and everyday life (other than the use of the same word), such a view is very counterintuitive; There is certainly some relationship between the two concepts of causality. This leaves two more plausible views on this relationship. A strong vision of this relationship would be that the concepts are the same. The three unified tests of legal causation considered last, and the two aforementioned metaphysical views of immediate causality, would all make such a strong relationship plausible. A weaker view of this relationship would be to consider one part of the legal concept of causality—”cause in fact”—as the same as causality in science and everyday life, but to consider the other part—”immediate causality”—as the conclusions of political analyses that have nothing to do with anything that could be considered causality in an ordinary sense.