Resumo

PAPAYANNIS, Diego M.. Substantive Theories of Tort Law and the Relevance of Methodology. Isonomía [online]. 2012, n.37, pp.61-97. ISSN 1405-0218.

It has been typically understood that the best theory of tort law is the one that better explains the core features of the practice. In this sense, defenders of deon-tological theories, based on principles of justice, have rejected the explanatory power of economic analysis of law. They have argued that it is unable to reconstruct the practice making sense of its core concepts and the way they are related. Thus, economic analysis cannot account for the pattern of inferences that leads to a responsibility judgment. In this article I try to show that both theories explain different aspects of the practice. Against of what is generally assumed, economic analysis of law and deontological theories are not rival, but compatible, given that their purpose is to answer different questions.

Palavras-chave : Efficiency; corrective justice; distributive justice; conceptual explanation; functional explanation.