As it is taught today, Torts seems often to be conceived as a course that teaches students how law allocates the costs of accidents, while also providing some instruction on law and economics, or law and philosophy. In this Article, Professors John Goldberg and Benjamin Zipursky aim to change the way Torts is conceived and put us back on track, not just pedagogically but theoretically.

As its name indicates, tort law is about wrongs. Although there is a public aspect to it, tort law is primarily concerned with privately redressable wrongs. After exploring the recent development of the conception of tort as law for the allocation of accidentally caused losses, Professors Goldberg and Zipursky argue for the descriptive superiority of a wrongs-based view and explain that there is value to having law that defines private wrongs and provides recourse to victims of those wrongs. They conclude by identifying ways in which a wrongs-and-recourse approach to tort law can illuminate contemporary and enduring debates within and about tort law while also providing an agenda for further research.