COIN comes home to assist policing

[jmm99]

we're again hitting a common page;

except for H.L.A. Hart - had to Google that one. Henry Hart (of Harvard Law and co-author of The Federal Courts and the Federal System), oui - "reflective" there. As to jurisprudence and legal philosophy, non - in general (might surprise on some specifics, but only as they deal with legal practice).

Remember you are dealing with a guy who has a lot of CFM-Canada genes - so, don't expect much beyond someone like Dani Greysolon, here and here - not an ancestor, but my fav CFM capitaine.

Getting to the meat. Your distinction between proximity of causes makes sense. To me, "final cause" would imply the "proximate cause" which is closest in time to the injury giving rise to the tort. That is not what you meant by it.

What I learned (I think the same thing) was called "but for causation" - that is, but for the lack of a nail, etc., etc., etc., the kingdom was lost. In your Pinto case, that would be akin to suing Daimler's heirs - cuz he started it all (actually I guess Carnot's heirs, if he had any).

Anyway, we do look to "proximate cause", for which we have an operational definition here:

M Civ JI 15.01 Definition of Proximate Cause
When I use the words “proximate cause” I mean first, that the negligent conduct must have been a cause of plaintiff’s injury, and second, that the plaintiff’s injury must have been a natural and probable result of the negligent conduct.

M Civ JI 15.03 More Than One Proximate Cause
There may be more than one proximate cause. To be a proximate cause, the claimed negligence need not be the only cause nor the last cause. A cause may be proximate although it and another cause act at the same time or in combination to produce the occurrence.

M Civ JI 15.04 Causation by Multiple Defendants
You may decide that the conduct of [neither / none], one or [both / more] of the defendants was a proximate cause. If you decide that [one / one or more] of the defendants was negligent and that such negligence was a proximate cause of the occurrence, it is not a defense that the conduct of [the / any] other [defendant / defendants] also may have been a cause of the occurrence. Each defendant is entitled to separate consideration as to whether [his / or / her] conduct was a proximate cause of the occurrence.

M Civ JI 15.06 Intervening Outside Force (Other Than Person)
If you decide that [the defendant / one or more of the defendants] [was / were] negligent and that such negligence was a proximate cause of the occurrence, it is not a defense that [description of force] also was a cause of this occurrence. However, if you decide that the only proximate cause of the occurrence was [description of force], then your verdict should be for the [defendant / defendants].

Now, all this is what we'uns call "litigation language". The question of proximity is simply one of fact, as to which reasonable people can differ.

As to the example of the French Revolution, I would (based on my knowledge now) look at Louis XIII-XVI as a continuum - lots of threads passing through that period and giving us a 1789 conflagration.

But, having said that, if I were looking at the question cold - as an intel officer would have to with a new project, I'd start with Louis XVI. And then work backwards, if I had the time. In the real world, we not only have to look for arteries (avoiding waste of time on capillaries); but for lack of time we have to select which arteries are best pursued. So, you can't be risk averse - just careful.

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from wm
It has a corollary called the "Swapping Horses Fallacy;" namely, one cannot resolve a problem by changing one's perspective on that problem ("swap horses") in the middle of identifying and resolving the problem ("the middle of the stream" as it were).

Liked this one, which was similar to what I read recently in a military context - always keeping the objective in sight and not being diverted by intervening events (obviously based on CvC, but I will possibly remember the actual book after posting this).