The orthodox view regarding private law and, more specifically, the law of negligence is that it only deals with our rights and duties. Hence, values and civic maturity play no role in private law reasoning. Furthermore, Bernard Williams poses a pugnacious puzzle that arises in regard to civic maturity. If we ask the citizen to ‘take responsibility,’ then the answer demonstrates precisely that the citizen either has not shown maturity or is not mature. A sign of maturity means taking responsibility through our realization and reflections, not because
someone else has told us to do so. Contra Williams, I will argue that tort law advances
proleptic thoughts and ways of engaging with values so that the citizen inhabits a deliberative-aspirational perspective that reflects civic maturity. However, there is a tension between the idea of civic maturity itself and legal responsibility, and between rights and values or the good. The lecture will concentrate on this tension and will offer a solution to either dissolve or mitigate it.
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