Harry Potter and the Trouble with Tort Theory‪.‬

INTRODUCTION The last several decades of tort theory have left us with competing visions. Economists tell us that tort law promotes efficiency by giving people incentives to take account of costs they impose on others. (1) Philosophers tell us that tort law dispenses corrective justice by requiring wrongdoers to repair the wrongful losses they cause. (2) There is much to recommend both views, but there are also reasons to think we cannot have it both ways. My sympathies, I should say up front, lie with the philosophers. However, the aim of this Article is not to defend the claim that tort metes out corrective justice. Rather, the aim is to show that the leading theories of tort are radically incomplete and for roughly the same reason.