The Weakness of Relationality as a Unifying Concept in Tort.

This article examines the concept of relationality as a foundational principle in tort law through the lenses of corrective justice and civil recourse theories. Corrective justice theorists view relational wrongs as grounded in the internal moral structure of private law, emphasizing rights that protect a person’s capacity for purposive agency, while civil recourse theorists base relationality on positive law, defining torts as legally recognized relational wrongs that grant a right to civil recourse. The analysis finds that although relationality effectively describes the remedial relationship between wrong and redress, it offers limited guidance on which relational wrongs should be actionable in tort, particularly in negligence cases where the connection between duty and injury is less clear. The article highlights that civil recourse theory’s reliance on positive law risks expanding tort liability to loosely relational wrongs without sufficient moral or normative constraints, potentially undermining tort law’s coherence and its focus on protecting core human interests.